Nature 335, 509 - 514 (06 October 1988); doi:10.1038/335509a0

Distinct dental development patterns in early fossil hominids

A. D. Beynon^* & M. C. Dean^†

^*Department of Oral Biology, The Dental School, Framlington Place, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE2 4BW, UK
^†Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, University College London, Gower Street, London WCIE 6BT, UK

New studies on the jaws of hominids, based on incremental growth markings in teeth, can now provide an absolute timescale with which to calibrate dental developmental events such as tooth emergence. These new estimates of crown-formation times and the observed sequences of dental development are different in the hominids Australopithecus and Paranthropus. Early hominids evidently had shorter periods of dental development than modern humans and therefore a less prolonged infancy.

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