New methodology designed to reconstruct worn wisdom teeth of Homo sapiens

In the last years different methodologies have been developed to reconstruct worn teeth.

In this article, a team of palaeoanthropologists, including those of the Department of Anthropology University College London propose a new 2-D methodology to reconstruct the worn enamel of lower molars. Our main goals are to reconstruct molars with a high level of accuracy when measuring relevant histological variables and to validate the methodology calculating the errors associated with the measurements. The new methodology based on polynomial regressions can be confidently applied to the reconstruction of cuspal enamel of lower molars, as it improves the accuracy of the measurements and reduces the interobserver error. The present study shows that it is important to validate all methodologies in order to know the associated errors. This new methodology can be easily exportable to other modern human populations, the human fossil record and forensic sciences.

New methodology to reconstruct in 2-D the cuspal enamel of modern human lower molars

Mario Modesto-Mata, Cecilia García-Campos, Laura Martín-Francés, Marina Martínez de Pinillos, Rebeca García-González, Yuliet Quintino, Antoni Canals, Marina Lozano, M. Christopher Dean, María Martinón-Torres, José María Bermúdez de Castro

DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23243

---