ArticlePloS one2018
Earliest evidence of caries lesion in hominids reveal sugar-rich diet for a Middle Miocene dryopithecine from Europe.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence of Dental Caries in Past European Populations: A Systematic Review.Caries research · 2022Pooled it
- Effects of Sjogren's syndrome and high sugar diet on oral microbiome in patients with rampant caries: a clinical study.BMC oral health · 2024Article
- Dental calculus as a proxy for animal microbiomes.Quaternary international : the journal of the International Union for Quaternary Research · 2023Article
- Changing perspectives on early hominin diets.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Bearing Fruit: Miocene Apes and Rosaceous Fruit Evolution.Biological theory · 2023Article
- The largest and earliest known sample of dental caries in an extinct mammal (Mammalia, Euarchonta, Microsyops latidens) and its ecological implications.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Bolstering geometric morphometrics sample sizes with damaged and pathologic specimens: Is near enough good enough?Journal of anatomy · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The formation of dental caries is mainly caused by dietary habits and therefore, may contain information for dietary reconstructions of fossil hominids. This study investigates the caries lesion in the 12.5 Ma old type specimen of Dryopithecus carinthiacus Mottl 1957 (Primates, Hominidae) from St. Stefan (Austria). Potential food sources are identified on associated palynological data, which allow conclusions about food quality, sugar availability and the hominid metabolism during the Middle Miocene. Using micro computed tomography (μCT) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) we provide a detailed analysis and characterization of the individuals' caries type. Its lesion is compared with a dataset of 311 wild chimpanzees, indicating morphological and etiological differences in caries formation between both species. The affected molar of D. carinthiacus reveals features known from severe dental caries in humans: (1) Cavitation with steep walls and smooth surface; (2) Reparative dentine at the roof of the pulp chamber; (3) Sclerotic dentine below the cavitation; (4) Association with dental calculus and (5) Unilateral usage of the healthy right tooth row. Its advanced primary caries, initiating on the intact enamel surface, indicates a frequent intake of highly cariogenic sugar-rich fruits, which likely exceeds the frugivory of extant chimpanzees. This finding corresponds with the associated palynological record, which infers a habitat with nearly year-round supply (9-10 months/year) of high quality foods (>carbohydrates; < fibers). Our conclusions challenge the model of a step-wise increase in dietary quality during hominid evolution and support the uricase hypothesis, which discusses the hominid autapomorphy of a fructose-based fat accumulation for periods of starvation. This model receives further validation by the identification of soft-tissue preservation, interpreted as fossilized white adipose cells, in the articulated hominid skeleton of Oreopithecus bamboli from Italy.
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