Taxonomic and functional aspects of the patterning of enamel thickness distribution in extant large-bodied hominoids

One of the few uncontested viewpoints in studies of enamel thickness is tha t the molars of the African apes, Pan and Gorilla, possess "thin" enamel, w hile Pongo and modern humans possess varying degrees of "thick" enamel, eve n when interspecific differences in overall body or tooth size are taken in to account. Such studies focus primarily on estimates of the total volume o f enamel relative to tooth size (i.e., "relative" enamel thickness), as thi s is thought to bear directly on questions concerning dietary proclivities and phylogenetic relationships. Only recently have studies shifted focus to examining differences in the distribution of enamel across the tooth crown , i.e., the patterning of enamel thickness, as this may contribute to more refined models of tooth function and dietary adaptations in extant hominoid s. Additionally, this feature has been suggested to be a reliable indicator of taxonomic affinity in early hominins, though no study has specifically addressed whether species-specific patterns exist among known phena. The aims of this paper were to test more explicitly whether enamel thicknes s patterning provides valuable taxonomic, functional, and/or phylogenetic i nformation for maxillary molars of large-bodied extant hominoids. A series of seven linear enamel thickness measurements was recorded in the plane of the mesial cusps in cross sections of a total of 62 maxillary molars of P. troglodytes, G. gorilla, P. pygmaeus, and H. sapiens to estimate the patter ning of enamel thickness distribution. Results from a discriminant function analysis reveal that, overall, this trait reclassifies extant hominoid max illary molars with 90% accuracy: 100% of extant Homo, 75.0% of Pongo, 83.3% of Pan, and 66.7% of Gorilla ale reclassified correctly, indicating that t his feature possesses a strong taxonomic signal. Furthermore, differences i n the structure of the enamel cap are evident among hominoids: modern human s differ from Pongo in possessing proportionally thicker enamel in areas of the crown associated with shearing activity; Pan molars are better designe d than those of Gorilla for generating a greater component of crushing/grin ding loads. Thus, African ape molars are structurally dissimilar, even thou gh they are both considered to belong to a morphologically homogeneous "thi n-enameled" group. Simple developmental mechanisms can be invoked to explai n the sometimes subtle differences in the achievement of adult morphology. For instance, human and orangutan molar cusps possess a similar degree of e namel thickness, but the possibility exists that despite similarities in mo rphology, each species follows a different sequence of secretory activity o f enamel to achieve the final, albeit similar, degree of enamel thickness. Such a finding would suggest that the shared possession of "thick" or "thin " enamel among species may be phylogenetically uninformative, as it would n ot represent a developmental synapomorphy. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.