ArticlePloS one2013
Human life history evolution explains dissociation between the timing of tooth eruption and peak rates of root growth.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 71 citations in OpenAlex.
- Population-specific dental maturity scores for forensic age estimation in turkish children: a percentile-based modeling approach.International journal of legal medicine · 2026Article
- Validating Dental Histology for Perinatal Age Estimation Using Human Deciduous Teeth.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
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- An individual with Sarmatian-related ancestry in Roman Britain.Current biology : CB · 2024Article
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- Testing the inhibitory cascade model in a recent human sample.Journal of anatomy · 2021Article
- Morphological variation of the deciduous second molars in the Baka Pygmies.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Testing the inhibitory cascade model in the Middle Pleistocene Sima de los Huesos (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain) hominin sample.Journal of anatomy · 2021Review
- Growth and development of the third permanent molar in Paranthropus robustus from Swartkrans, South Africa.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- First systematic assessment of dental growth and development in an archaic hominin (genus,Science advances · 2019Article
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- Virtual histological assessment of the prenatal life history and age at death of the Upper Paleolithic fetus from Ostuni (Italy).Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Measures of maturation in early fossil hominins: events at the first transition from australopiths to early Homo.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Review
- Diversity in tooth eruption and life history in humans: illustration from a Pygmy population.Scientific reports · 2016Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
We explored the relationship between growth in tooth root length and the modern human extended period of childhood. Tooth roots provide support to counter chewing forces and so it is advantageous to grow roots quickly to allow teeth to erupt into function as early as possible. Growth in tooth root length occurs with a characteristic spurt or peak in rate sometime between tooth crown completion and root apex closure. Here we show that in Pan troglodytes the peak in root growth rate coincides with the period of time teeth are erupting into function. However, the timing of peak root velocity in modern humans occurs earlier than expected and coincides better with estimates for tooth eruption times in Homo erectus. With more time to grow longer roots prior to eruption and smaller teeth that now require less support at the time they come into function, the root growth spurt no longer confers any advantage in modern humans. We suggest that a prolonged life history schedule eventually neutralised this adaptation some time after the appearance of Homo erectus. The root spurt persists in modern humans as an intrinsic marker event that shows selection operated, not primarily on tooth tissue growth, but on the process of tooth eruption. This demonstrates the overarching influence of life history evolution on several aspects of dental development. These new insights into tooth root growth now provide an additional line of enquiry that may contribute to future studies of more recent life history and dietary adaptations within the genus Homo.
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