What can teeth tell us about early humans?
Shara Bailey, associate professor of anthropology at NYU, reads the topography of teeth to better understand the origins and ancestry of humans.
Vocabulary: dental morphology, fossils, evolution, Neanderthals, Homo naledi, canine, molar, cusp
Next Generation Science Standards: LS4.A: Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity, CC1: Patterns, CC6: Structure and Function, and SEP7: Engaging in Argument from Evidence. Can be used to build towards the following performance expectations: MS-LS4–1, MS-LS4–2, and HS-LS4–1.
Common Core State Standards:CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9–10.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11–12.1
Researchers have reported that they think fossils found in North Africa are the remains of Homo sapiens from over 300,000 years ago. If the team is correct, the find represents the oldest known Homo sapiens fossils. The remains, along with some stone tools, were found at a site in Morocco rather than in more southern sites in Ethiopia’s Rift Valley, which has long been associated with early humans.
Ancient human teeth can tell us a lot. Hidden inside each set are clues about their owner’s behavior and ancestry plus hints about what really made up the paleo diet. Shara Bailey, an anthropologist at New York University and one of the authors of a report on the find, published in the journal Nature, reads the topography of teeth to better understand the origins and lineages of humans.
Learn more about Shara’s research and her work on the Morocco project in this Science Friday interview. (Print this interview transcript.)
Questions
- Why are teeth some of the only remains of early humans or their ancestors?
- Why do you think that human canines became more diamond shaped? What might that indicate about our diet?
- Why is it important to be able to distinguish between Neanderthals and early humans? Why are teeth key to these types of distinctions?
- After human ancestors adopted agriculture, cavities and abscesses began to appear in human teeth. What do you think caused teeth to become so disgusting?
- Develop one question that you think could be explored further using techniques in dental anthropology.
Activity Suggestions
- Have students examine their own molars! Use this activity to explore the number of cusps in lower molars and have students make a mold of their molars with dental wax or non-stick candies to better examine and compare their molar shapes.
- Look at how teeth differ between different types of organisms. Have students examine images of different animal teeth and draw conclusions about the types of food eaten by each organism based on that organism’s tooth structure.
