Boss, Olivia:
Title: Comparative dental microwear textural analysis: Pitheciines, Alouatta, and Ateles
Name: Olivia Boss
Major: Evolutionary Anthropology
School affiliation: School of Arts and Sciences
Programs: Aresty – Research or Conference Funding Recipient
Other contributors: Robert Scott
Abstract: Dental microwear texture analysis is an important technique in the study of fossil hominin diets because it focuses on a direct point of contact between food and the body. The study of microwear in extant primates with observable diets is vital to interpreting what its results in extinct species might imply about the material properties of what was eaten. This project examines occlusal microwear patterns on the lower molars of Pithecia, Chiropotes, Alouatta, and Ateles specimens. Through 3D textural analysis and a focus on surface complexity and anisotropy, this project evaluates whether these characteristics correspond with expectations based on the observed hardness or toughness of these genera’s diets. Pithecia and Chiropotes did not exhibit significantly more complexity than taxa that eat hard foods less frequently, and Alouatta did not exhibit significantly more anisotropy than most taxa presumed to eat tough foods less frequently. Ateles exhibited somewhat more complexity than other taxa, and its complexity was varied. These results suggest that microwear signals do not strictly conform to the broad dietary categories of the genera studied, and that tough foods may play a larger role in the diets of seed predators than expected.