Behavioral Strategies of Prehistoric and Historic Children from Dental Microwear Texture Analysis

Reconstructing the dietary and behavioral strategies of our hominin ancestors is crucial to understanding their evolution, adaptation, and overall way of life. Teeth in general, and dental microwear specifically, provide a means to examine these strategies, with posterior teeth well positioned to tell us about diet, and anterior teeth helping us examine non-dietary tooth-use behaviors. Past research predominantly focused on strategies of adult individuals, leaving us to wonder the role children may have played in the community at large. Here we begin to address this by analyzing prehistoric and historic children through dental microwear texture analysis of deciduous anterior teeth.