A global study of dental variation offering insights into modern human origins.

Explores the insights that fossil hominin teeth provide about human evolution, linking findings with current debates in palaeoanthropology.

All humans share certain components of tooth structure, but show variation in size and morphology around this shared pattern. This book presents a worldwide synthesis of the global variation in tooth morphology in recent populations. Research has advanced on many fronts since the publication of the first edition, which has become a seminal work on the subject. This revised and updated edition introduces new ideas in dental genetics and ontogeny and summarizes major historical problems addressed by dental morphology. The detailed descriptions of 29 dental variables are fully updated with current data and include details of a new web-based application for using crown and root morphology to evaluate ancestry in forensic cases. A new chapter describes what constitutes a modern human dentition in the context of the hominin fossil record.

This book provides information on nomenclature, tooth numbering systems, tooth morphology, and anatomy and stages of tooth formation. It continues with root canal morphology and anatomy of incisors, canines, premolars, and molars. External and internal anatomies of mandibular permanent incisors and maxillary permanent first molars are presented according to a literature review. Orofacial structures affecting tooth morphology are discussed in detail. The book ends with the evolution of dental implant shapes and todays custom root analog implants.