Journal of Dental Research, Vol 79, 13-20, Copyright © 2000 by International & American Associations for Dental Research Online Journals
Her name is "Lucy", our three-million-year-old ancestor
E. D. Shields
Department of Oral Biology, Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University, Montreal, PQ, Canada.
Dental anthropology is a key discipline in studies to determine the
evolutionary history of our hominid ancestors, to identify the origin and
dispersal of modern humans, and to reconstruct the source of observed
dental variation. A survey of hominid and modern human evolutionary
history, emphasizing results from powerful multivariate dental morphometric
methodologies, suggests a single African origin of modern humans >
150,000 years before present from a Homo heidelbergensis ancestor. A
continuum among modern humanity is described, with, first, sub-Saharan
Africans, then southeast Asian Negrito, and Australian aborigines at its
extant root. Other interpretations of the available data are possible.
Examinations of the progress of the evolution of teeth through time give
significant insight into dental morphogenetics and variation, and the
biology of dental evolution. The mechanisms of evolution which fashion a
phenotype and the methods of molecular and dental phylogenetics are
reviewed and evaluated. This is an exciting time for dental anthropology,
with fascinating and challenging questions to address, but anthropologists,
not dentists, dominate the field. The perspective of a dentist can
meaningfully add to the dynamics of dental anthropology.
