The role of food stiffness in dental microwear feature formation.

OBJECTIVE: The etiology of dental microwear is incompletely understood, despite copious documentation of wear patterns from wild and captive specimens across numerous vertebrate taxa. Among the contested issues with respect to microwear formation is the question of whether materials softer than enamel (specifically, foods themselves) can produce wear features. DESIGN: We examine the creation of enamel microwear features in vitro from foods that vary in hardness and toughness on a sample of mammalian lower molars (pig, bear, deer, and primate). These experiments involved applying loads at a constant displacement rate perpendicular to an occlusal enamel surface. Changes in surface microwear textures were assessed after 10 loads. RESULTS: Our experiments demonstrate that even relatively soft foods free of exogenous abrasives modify surface texture to produce distinctive microwear fabrics. Consequently, these data provide clear evidence that materials softer than enamel are capable of indenting and abrading enamel surfaces. Foods with a relatively high elastic modulus are associated with larger and more extensive microwear features, although the relationship between food stiffness and rate of microwear formation does not appear to be a simple one. CONCLUSIONS: These observations refute recent arguments that food material is an insignificant agent in the formation and accumulation of enamel microwear. Relative hardness of ingested materials is only one factor in the etiology of microwear formation.

Technical note: An in vitro study of dental microwear formation using the BITE Master II chewing machine.

Dental microwear has been used for decades to reconstruct the diets of fossil hominins and bioarchaeological populations. The basic theory has been that hard-brittle foods (e.g., nuts, bone) require crushing and leave pits as they are pressed between opposing cheek-tooth surfaces, whereas soft-tough foods (e.g., grass blades, meat) require shearing and leave scratches as they are dragged along opposing surfaces that slide past one another. However, recent studies have called into question the efficacy of microwear as an indicator of diet. One issue has been the limited number of in vitro studies providing empirical evidence for associations between microwear pattern and chewing behavior. We here describe a new study using a chewing simulator, the BITE Master II, to examine the effects of angle of approach between opposing teeth and food consistency on microwear surface texture. Results indicate that opposing teeth that approach one another: 1) perpendicular to the occlusal plane (crushing) result in pits; 2) parallel to the occlusal plane (shearing) result in striations in the direction of movement; and 3) oblique to the occlusal plane (45°) result in both striations and pits. Results further suggest that different food types and abrasive loads affect the propensity to accumulate microwear features independent of feature shapes.