(ORDO NEWS) — Scientific and technical information site. posted an article describing a study by Japanese scientists who found out the causes of tooth wear in wild Japanese macaques, which will help to understand the causes of this phenomenon in ancient people.
The researchers studied root grooves and large, uniform scratches on macaque teeth. Previously, such violations of the integrity of the teeth were found only in fossil people.
It was believed that such wear of teeth was possible only in ancient people and was caused by the impact of tools. But since similar anomalies in the teeth have been found in macaques that do not use tools, this has called into question existing ideas.
Toothpick-like furrows on the back teeth and large, uniform scratches on the front teeth of monkeys appear to be the result of eating shellfish and accidentally ingesting sand with food.
It was believed that the grooves on the front teeth were associated with dressing skins, since during dressing the skin was held by the front teeth and cut with a stone tool. And the grooves on the molars have been associated with the possible removal of food debris between the teeth.
It is likely that the causes could be both natural, as in macaques, and formed under the influence of tools that hominids used in everyday life.
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