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VI/2/2015
INTERDISCIPLINARIA ARCHAEOLOGICA
NATURAL SCIENCES IN ARCHAEOLOGY
homepage: http://www.iansa.eu
Book reviews
Volume VI ● Issue 1/2015 ● Pages 239–240
Tooth Development in Human Evolution
and Bioarchaeology.
Simon Hillson
Cambridge University Press, New York.
2014. 307 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1107011335.
$52.0–$75.0 (hardcover)
surface and tooth section. In the frst few
chapters we fnd information on the growth
and development of humans and other
primates in general, and on the growth and
development of teeth in particular. Chapters
4 and 5, the core of the book according
to the author, describe the structures of
tooth’s hard tissues, techniques of their
microscopy, and methods of building a
developmental chronology of teeth. The
second half of the book mainly presents
different types of studies focused on human
growth and development in the fossil and
archaeological record.
One of the most typical human
characteristics is its uniquely slow growth.
This is partly due to the overall trend we
see in mammals, and especially in great
apes: the strong relationship between body
size and growth rate (
i.e.
bigger body =
slower growth). However, in humans this
trend is even more accentuated; thus, with
regard to growth and development, humans
are outliers compared to other primates.
Development in human dentition is also
unique – the order in which teeth develop
and the enormous time it takes (the human
eruption sequence is twice that of other
great apes).
A tooth is an important medium for
recording information on the quality of
an individual’s growth and development
thanks to two essential features: frstly,
its chemical composition makes a tooth
highly durable and able to resist both the
conditions within the human mouth during
life as well as the taphonomical processes
after an individual’s death; secondly, there
being no remodelation of hard tissue once
it is made there exists a detailed record of a
tooth’s development. Providing conditions
are good we can recover all this information
many years after the death of an individual,
and even when the remains are fossilized.
The dental tissues which are of special
importance for growth and development
research are the enamel and dentin. Both
these hard tissues consist of incremental
microstructures, which are regularly
formed in short (circadian) and long periods
(approximately weekly) and thus refect the
pace of growth and course of development.
These structures are visible in tooth sections,
the long-period increments of enamel being
also visible on the crown surface in the
form of perikymata. This forms the basis
for building up developmental chronologies
of teeth: through the estimation of tooth
growth rate and timing of different
developmental stages.
However, as mentioned above, the use
of tooth developmental chronology in
paleoanthropology or bioarchaeology is not
straightforward. To answer questions on the
evolution of human life history, we need to
be cautious when using data obtained from
fossil assemblages or primate populations
that will never be as numerous or reliable
as data from modern human populations.
Despite this, it seems that answers to such
questions are supposed to be found in the
fossil record of the Middle and Upper
Palaeolithic period. To answer questions
on the effects of biological or cultural
transitions in the health of past human
populations, through the microscopic record
of hard dental tissues (particularly enamel),
we must make a defnite connection
between a certain enamel defect and a
certain developmental disruption. While we
know generally that connections between
certain enamel defects and developmental
disruption do exist, to connect particular
causes in archaeological samples is very
diffcult, without even talking about the
tricky recording of defects. This may
explain the unclear results of some of the
case studies presented in Chapter 8.
The histology of human teeth and the
schedule of tooth development and growth
have long been known – since the knowledge
explosion of the nineteenth century. The
basics of dental anatomy and histology, for
example, are connected with the work of
R. Owen, A. A. Retzius or J. Tomes, and we
meet their names in the terms for the tooth’s
microstructures. During the twentieth and
start of the twenty-frst century, there have
been many studies dealing with dental
histology and tooth development and
growth from various points of view. What
is refreshing in Simon Hillson’s publication
Simon Hillson’s publication “Tooth
Development in Human Evolution and
Bioarchaeology” offers a comprehensive
review of our current knowledge regarding
human growth and development –
based particularly on the entire possible
information one can get from the hard
tissues of teeth. There are two main topics
focused on in this book: the uniquely slow
human growth and its evolution, and the
capacity of enamel and dentin to record
the biological and cultural transitions in
past human populations. To reveal the plot
right from the start – it’s not a simple task
to answer questions about these issues and
neither is it on the basis of tooth histology.
The text is divided into nine chapters
and two appendices, replete with useful
tables mostly concerning the ages of tooth
development in apes and humans, and
methods of working with dental material
in microscopy and especially the tooth
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IANSA 2015 ● VI/2 ● 239–240
Book Reviews
240
is the complexity with which he presents
the possible ways of studying human
variability through tooth histology. Hence,
together with its practical instructions for
the laboratory treatment of teeth and their
hard tissues, it can be used as a manual for
furthering research into human growth and
development as recorded in their dentition.
References
HILLSON, S. 2014:
Tooth Development in
Human Evolution and Bioarchaeology.
Cambridge University Press, New York.
Petra Spěváčková