The objective of the volume is to bring together, in one collection, the most innovative dental anthropological research as it pertains to the study of hominid evolution. In the past few decades both the numbers of hominid dental fossils and the sophistication of the techniques used to analyze them have increased substantially. The book's contributions focus on dental morphometrics, growth and development, diet and dental evolution.

Autorentext

Shara Bailey: Shara Bailey is an Assistant Professor at New York University and a member of the Center for the study of Human Origins.  Her past appointments include Research Scientist at the Max Planck Insitutue for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) and Post-Doctoral Researcher at The George Washington University, Washington DC.  She completed her PhD in Biolgoical Anthropology at Arizona State University, Tempe in 2002. Dr. Bailey's primary reserach interest is in addressing paleoanthropological questions from a dental perspective.  The major focus of her research has been Middle to Late Pleistocene hominns and modern human origins, but her research interests include early hominin and primate evolution as well.

Jean-Jacques Hublin: Jean-Jacques Hublin, Ph.D., is currently a Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany), where he also serves as the Director of the Department of Human Evolution. Initially his research focuses on the origin and evolution of Neanderthals and he has proposed an accretion model for the emergence of the Neandertal lineage that roots it in time in the middle of the middle Pleistocene. He also worked on the processes associated with the emergence of Homo sapiens and on the interactions between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans in Europe. He developed the use of medical and virtual imaging in the reconstruction and study of fossil hominids and paid attention to the growth and development issues. He has led field operations in North Africa, Spain and France. In addition to his scientific papers, he has regularly published popular books (with translations in English, Italian, Spanish and Chinese) and articles on the subjects of Neanderthal and early modern human evolution. Significant past research and teaching appointments include: Researcher, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (1981-2000), Visiting Professor, University of California at Berkeley (1992), Harvard University (1997) and Stanford University (1999), Elected member of the French National Committee of Scientific Research (1991-2000), Professor at the University of Bordeaux (2000-2004), and Deputy Director for Anthropology, Prehistory and Paleo-environmental Sciences, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (2000-2003).

Zusammenfassung
S. E. BAILEY Department of Human Evolution Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Deutscher Platz 6 D-04103 Leipzig, Germany and Center for the Study of Human Origins, Department of Anthropology, New York University, 25 Waverly Place New York, NY 10003, USA sbailey@nyu. edu J. -J. HUBLIN Department of Human Evolution Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Deutscher Platz 6 D-04103 Leipzig, Germany hublin@eva. mpg. de When faced with choosing a topic to as teeth represent, by far, the most abundant be the focus of the first symposium material documenting different species of in Human Evolution at the Max Planck extinct non-human primates and hominins. As Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in such, much of what we know about non- Leipzig, a paleoanthropological perspective human primate and hominin evolution is based of dental anthropology was a natural choice. on teeth. Teeth make up a disproportionate number Teeth have been a focus of interest for of the fossils discovered. They represent physical anthropologists over many gen- strongly mineralized organs of compact shape, ations. Teeth provide a multitude of which allow better preservation in geological information about humans including deposits and archaeological sites than any cultural treatment, pathology, morphological other part of the skeleton. As a result, variation, and development. The presence of since the discoveries of the first fossils of culturally induced wear (toothpick grooves, extinct species, vertebrate paleontology has for example) reveals something about what been built primarily on analyses of teeth.

Inhalt
Dental Evolution and Dental Morphology.- Patterns of molar variation in great apes and their implications for hominin taxonomy.- Trends in postcanine occlusal morphology within the hominin clade: The case of Paranthropus.- Maxillary molars cusp morphology of South African australopithecines.- Gran Dolina-TD6 and Sima de los Huesos dental samples: Preliminary approach to some dental characters of interest for phylogenetic studies.- Neural network analysis by using the Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs) applied to human fossil dental morphology: A new methodology.- Micro-computed tomography of primate molars: Methodological aspects of three-dimensional data collection.- HRXCT analysis of hominoid molars: A quantitative volumetric analysis and 3D reconstruction of coronal enamel and dentin.- Dental Microstructure and Life History.- Inferring primate growth, development and life history from dental microstructure: The case of the extinct Malagasy lemur, Megaladapis.- Histological study of an upper incisor and molar of a bonobo (Pan paniscus) individual.- New perspectives on chimpanzee and human molar crown development.- Portable confocal scanning optical microscopy of Australopithecus africanus enamel structure.- Imbricational enamel formation in Neandertals and recent modern humans.- Dental Development.- Of mice and monkeys: Quantitative genetic analyses of size variation along the dental arcade.- Quantifying variation in human dental development sequences: An EVO-DEVO perspective.- Dental calcification stages of the permanent M1 and M2 in U.S. children of African-American and European-American ancestry born in the 1990s.- A computerized model for reconstruction of dental ontogeny: A new tool for studying evolutionary trends in the dentition.- Dentition and Diet.- An evaluation of changes in strontium/calcium ratios across the neonatal line in human deciduous teeth.- Dental topography and human evolution with comments on the diets of Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus.- Dental microwear and Paleoanthropology: Cautions and possibilities.- Tooth wear and diversity in early hominid molars: A case study.- 3-D interferometric microscopy applied to the study of buccal enamel microwear.