Female Vanity in the Early Modern Period: Evidence from the Science Based Reassessment of a Supposed Merovingian Dental Appliance.

Musée de la Cour d'Or, Metz, France, possesses a female skull bearing a gold wire dental appliance claimed in a 1934 Dental Cosmos article on the history of dental prosthetics to be 'probably' Merovingian in origin. Inquiries in 2017 revealed current museum curators were unaware of this claim but were skeptical of such dating suggesting scientific analysis might provide clarity. Carbon dating of a tooth from the skull was carried out placing the artifact in the mid seventeenth-late eighteenth centuries while Metz historical records reveal the find site was occupied by a convent of nuns for most of C14 dated period. Strontium isotopic analysis indicates the woman was a local of the Metz region while fluorine analysis indicates exposure to fluoride early in life. Oral health status and the dentistry indicate the woman was of high social status.

Female Vanity in the Early Modern Period: Evidence from the Science Based Reassessment of a Supposed Merovingian Dental Appliance.

Musée de la Cour d'Or, Metz, France, possesses a female skull bearing a gold wire dental appliance claimed in a 1934 Dental Cosmos article on the history of dental prosthetics to be 'probably' Merovingian in origin. Inquiries in 2017 revealed current museum curators were unaware of this claim but were skeptical of such dating, suggesting scientific analysis might provide clarity. Carbon dating of a tooth from the skull was performed placing the artifact in the mid seventeenth-late eighteenth centuries, while Metz historical records reveal the find site was occupied by a convent of nuns for most of C14 dated period. Strontium isotopic analysis indicated that the woman was a local of the Metz region while fluorine analysis indicated exposure to fluoride early in life. Oral health status and the dentistry indicate the woman was of high social status.

Taxonomic status of the Australian dingo: the case for Canis dingo Meyer, 1793.

The taxonomic status and systematic nomenclature of the Australian dingo remain contentious, resulting in decades of inconsistent applications in the scientific literature and in policy. Prompted by a recent publication calling for dingoes to be considered taxonomically as domestic dogs (Jackson et al. 2017, Zootaxa 4317, 201-224), we review the issues of the taxonomy applied to canids, and summarise the main differences between dingoes and other canids. We conclude that (1) the Australian dingo is a geographically isolated (allopatric) species from all other Canis, and is genetically, phenotypically, ecologically, and behaviourally distinct; and (2) the dingo appears largely devoid of many of the signs of domestication, including surviving largely as a wild animal in Australia for millennia. The case of defining dingo taxonomy provides a quintessential example of the disagreements between species concepts (e.g., biological, phylogenetic, ecological, morphological). Applying the biological species concept sensu stricto to the dingo as suggested by Jackson et al. (2017) and consistently across the Canidae would lead to an aggregation of all Canis populations, implying for example that dogs and wolves are the same species. Such an aggregation would have substantial implications for taxonomic clarity, biological research, and wildlife conservation. Any changes to the current nomen of the dingo (currently Canis dingo Meyer, 1793), must therefore offer a strong, evidence-based argument in favour of it being recognised as a subspecies of Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758, or as Canis familiaris Linnaeus, 1758, and a successful application to the International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature - neither of which can be adequately supported. Although there are many species concepts, the sum of the evidence presented in this paper affirms the classification of the dingo as a distinct taxon, namely Canis dingo.

Replication of Ancient Egyptian Oral Surgical Procedures Using Stone and Bronze Hand Drills.

For over a hundred years researchers have disputed whether ancient Egyptians performed the oral surgical procedure of drilling holes in jaws, presumably in an attempt to relieve pressure and pain due to periapical infections. To date (although it has been indirectly suggested) there have been no published attempts to reproduce the disputed holes identified in the Egyptian mandibles with tools fabricated from stone and bronze, the materials that were available to ancient Egyptian artisans. This paper presents an abbreviated assessment of oral surgery in ancient Egypt regarding these procedures, with an attempt to reproduce these procedures on fresh pig and embalmed cadaver jaws as proxies for vital human bone, using hand drills that were fabricated of bronze and chet.The experiment confirms that the procedure could be effectively performed with basic hand tools. In comparison to fresh pig mandible the embalming process hardens cadaver bone. Redesign of drill handles would increase efficiency.

Could direct killing by larger dingoes have caused the extinction of the thylacine from mainland Australia?

Invasive predators can impose strong selection pressure on species that evolved in their absence and drive species to extinction. Interactions between coexisting predators may be particularly strong, as larger predators frequently kill smaller predators and suppress their abundances. Until 3500 years ago the marsupial thylacine was Australia's largest predator. It became extinct from the mainland soon after the arrival of a morphologically convergent placental predator, the dingo, but persisted in the absence of dingoes on the island of Tasmania until the 20th century. As Tasmanian thylacines were larger than dingoes, it has been argued that dingoes were unlikely to have caused the extinction of mainland thylacines because larger predators are rarely killed by smaller predators. By comparing Holocene specimens from the same regions of mainland Australia, we show that dingoes were similarly sized to male thylacines but considerably larger than female thylacines. Female thylacines would have been vulnerable to killing by dingoes. Such killing could have depressed the reproductive output of thylacine populations. Our results support the hypothesis that direct killing by larger dingoes drove thylacines to extinction on mainland Australia. However, attributing the extinction of the thylacine to just one cause is problematic because the arrival of dingoes coincided with another the potential extinction driver, the intensification of the human economy.