Fighting snow and ice for that all important DATA

After battling the snow and freezing cold today, I managed to get a nice chunk of new data for my research. So I suppose it would be now be prudent to actually explain what it is I am doing!

My working title for the study I am carrying out is ‘Masticatory Mechanics and Dental Microwear’. And its only when having to communicate the topic of your research so frequently that you realise it’s a good idea to have a whole-volume-in-a-nutshell type response at hand! For anyone with a working knowledge of dental anthropology, I aim to investigate whether it is possible to make conclusions about jaw movement, morphology, and mechanics based solely on analysis of the microscopic wear patterns found on the occlusal surfaces of the molars.

For most people, this tends to sound like a huge yawn. Even BioAnth students who have taken osteology modules tend to dislike teeth with a passion. BUT, when you really dig in deep and push yourself past the bewildering (and often conflicting) terminology, the field of dental anthropology is immensely interesting and is capable of yielding vast amounts of information. Enamel is the strongest material found in the human body, and can survive for geological periods of time with little taphonomic (post-moterm) change. The fossils of some of our oldest proposed ancestors are known only by dental finds. This is why people have been trying to unlock the secrets of teeth for many decades now, because they in turn can use these discoveries to solve the riddles left with us by the odd tooth found in the middle of nowhere. Most are concerned with using teeth to investigate diet, which is a pretty sensible line of enquiry considering the main function of the dentition! Using tried and tested techniques, we can now come to conclusions about the diet of many extinct species and past populations. If this does not seem fascinating in itself, imagine how easily you can then branch out when you have an approximate knowledge of the diet or crown morphology of a species. You can use it to support hypotheses about niche occupancy, habitat, environment of evolutionary adaptedness, migration, phylogeny… and the list goes on. If you are unfamiliar with the particular use of microwear to determine diet, now would be a good time to refer you to Ungar’s brilliant website for a detailed explanation.

Unfortunately for a microwear researcher like me, this specific area of study is currently undergoing a change in methodology. The long used scanning electron microscope relied upon for so many years is now being overlooked in favour of the newer confocal microscopes. Using these, researchers can now produce three dimensional maps of the tooth surface to study. This is definitely the way forward, as the additional advantage of depth measurements adds a new element in the use of microwear for determining diet.

However, luckily for me, I am not so much interested in diet as I am in morphology and mechanics. So I can use an SEM in order for me to carry out this preliminary investigation to determine whether my hunch is right. If it turns out that we really can use microwear in this way, the next step would be to image some occlusal surfaces in a confocal microscope for extra measurements. So that’s pretty much everything I’m doing right now, short of writing up an actual abstract for you!

Thought I might make a few notes on data collection. If you do have to go out and get data from external sources, don’t rely on your supervisor or expect them to sort it out for you. They are not babysitting you, this is YOUR research and it is up to you to find the material that best suits your needs. Look at other papers to see where they have acknowledged others – they will mention where the data was collected from if they do not do so in the main text. Contact as many people as possible and try to be flexible with your dates and times, as museums and other educational institutions are rarely open on weekends or out of normal working hours. These places also get booked up by researchers weeks or months in advance, so contact them as soon as you know when and how you will be collecting your data. Don’t let bench fees put you off, if for some reason your institution will not pay them for you, you can very often bargain with the place concerned by offering them your measurements/images/services/etc after submission or publication in exchange for use of their material.