Dental microwear texture analysis shows within-species diet variability in fossil hominins

摘要: Reconstructing the diets of extinct hominins is essential to understanding paleobiology and evolutionary history our lineage. Dental microwear, study microscopic tooth-wear resulting from use, provides direct evidence what an individual ate in past. Unfortunately, established methods studying microwear are plagued with low repeatability high observer error. Here we apply objective, repeatable approach for three-dimensional surface texture South African hominins. Scanning confocal microscopy together scale-sensitive fractal analysis used characterize complexity anisotropy microwear. Results living primates show that this can distinguish among characterized by different fracture properties. When applied hominins, indicates Australopithecus africanus more anisotropic, but also variable than Paranthropus robustus. This latter species has complex textures, A. africanus. suggests tough foods P. robustus consumed hard brittle items, both had overlapping diets.