November 26 2024 – 15h45: international seminar Palevoprim n° 56
Speaker
Mona Le luyer
UMR 5199 PACEA, University of Bordeaux
Topic
New insights on the evolution of human teeth: the relevance of multi-scale and multi-proxy approaches
Over the past 40,000 years, the human skeleton has continued to evolve in response to environmental and cultural modifications.
One of the most remarkable changes is shown by the teeth: a reduction in tooth size is documented worldwide and accelerated towards the end of the Pleistocene around 28,000 years ago. Based only on external crown assessment, several models have been proposed and discussed to explain this reduction over time. Major sociocultural and economic changes occurred at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, but human dental remains from these periods have been poorly investigated by cutting-edge methods.
Here I present how the use of evidence combining different techniques to characterize teeth at different structural levels can provide new insights into recent human evolution.
Place
Room 410, 3rd floor, North wing, Build. B35, university of Poitiers.