During the early twentieth century, scientists uncovered fossils belonging to Homo erectus in Zhoukoudian near Beijing. But many of these fossils, which belonged to what came to be known as Peking Man, were lost during World War II. Only six teeth have been recovered. Now, a team of international researchers has applied modern methods to examining them with new implications for human development.
“Since they were lost, for research on the fossil humans found at the site during the 1930s, plaster replicas of very poor quality have been used, as well as the descriptions and sketches that the researcher Franz Weidenreich left us,” said José María Bermúdez de Castro, coordinator of the paleobiology of hominins program at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobra la Evolución Humana in Spain.
The researchers used the Molnar grading system and Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System to score tooth wear stages. They also measured the mesiodistal and buccolingual dimensions of the crown and calculated the crown index. Microcomputed tomography using a 225 kV-µCT scanner and geometric morphometric analysis were used as well.
According to the researchers, the similarities between the Zhoukoudian remains and other East Asian hominins reveals a dental pattern that’s potentially characteristic of H erectus while highlighting differences ascribed either to H erectus or other species of hominins from Africa and Europe. Also, the teeth display a highly crenulated enamel-dentin junction (EDJ) with an imprint on the roof of the pulp cavity.
So far, the researchers say, this “dendrite-like” EDJ has only been found in East Asia Middle Pleistocene hominins, which could be useful in dentally defining classic H erectus in China. Together, the crenulated EDH surface, the stout roots, and the taurodontism could be a mechanism for withstanding a high biomechanical demand despite a general dentognathic reduction, particularly of the crowns, in these populations.
The study, “The Fossil Teeth of the Peking Man,” was published by Scientific Reports.
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