Seminar with Professor Tanya Smith

Teeth  are some of the best preserved and most commonly-recovered elements in  human skeletal assemblages. Dental tissues contain remarkably faithful  records  of their development through time, best represented by daily  incremental features in enamel and dentine. These features have been  used to determine the rate and duration of tooth formation, disruptions  during development, and age at death in juvenile  hominins. Syntheses of tooth growth  and chemistry have the potential to increase our understanding of human  biology, including the impacts of cultural transitions and climate  variability - heralding a bright future  for research in evolutionary anthropology.