Doctoral Dissertation Research: Identifying dental morphological variation among Pliocene hominins

博士论文研究：识别上新世古人类的牙齿形态变异

• 批准号: 2341308
• 负责人: Yohannes Ambaye
• 金额: $ 1.48万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-02-15 至 2025-05-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2341308&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Identifying; dental

This doctoral dissertation project analyzes the variation in size and shape of dental traits among hominins from fossil teeth that are dated to 4.2-3.0 million years ago. The availability of fossil teeth this old has increased significantly in the last decades, yet many of these findings are of isolated teeth that remain unattributed to any species or genus. To address this issue, the doctoral student uses a new approach that allows for improved taxonomic identification of ancient hominin teeth and furthers the understanding of dental and morphological boundaries between these hominin species. Information derived from hominin fossil teeth that are not assigned to a species cannot be fully integrated into paleo-anthropological analyses and remain underutilized. In addition to training a graduate student the project includes the training of undergraduate students, along with plans to share results with the public through outreach activities, and the resulting 3D scans will be made available in public repositories. This project collects metric, non-metric, and two-dimensional landmark data from the teeth of all known Pliocene hominin species dated to 4.2 to 3.0 million years ago. The goal is to assess the affinity of numerous taxonomically unattributed isolated teeth that come from sites dated to that period. The large sample size of teeth in each of the comparative species allows meaningful observations in terms of identifying discrete dental traits or set of traits for each taxon. Once identified, these can be used in the taxonomic identification of newly discovered isolated teeth. Results obtained are interpreted considering recent hypotheses regarding Pliocene hominin diversity and the mode of speciation in the Australopithecus anamensis-Australopithecus afarensis lineage. Furthermore, the occlusal images of tooth crowns, three-dimensional scans of fossil casts, and dental metric, non-metric, and landmark measurements generated by this project are significant for future research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该博士学位论文项目分析了人类牙齿牙齿的牙齿性状大小和形状的变化，该化石牙齿的历史可追溯到4.2-30万年前。 在过去的几十年中，这种古老的化石牙齿的可用性显着增加，但其中许多发现是孤立的牙齿，这些牙齿仍未归因于任何物种或属。 为了解决这个问题，博士生使用了一种新方法，可以改善对古代人类牙齿的分类学识别，并进一步了解这些人类种类之间的牙齿和形态界限。 未分配给物种的人类化石牙齿的信息不能完全整合到古人类学分析中，并保持不足。除培训研究生外，该项目还包括对本科生的培训，以及通过外展活动与公众分享结果的计划，由此产生的3D扫描将在公共存储库中提供。该项目从所有已知的上新世植物物种的牙齿中收集了度量，非现成和二维地标数据，该物种的日期为4.2至30万年前。目的是评估来自该时期的众多隔离牙齿的众多分类学隔离牙齿的亲和力。每个比较物种中牙齿的较大样本量允许在识别每个分类单元的离散牙齿性状或一组特征方面进行有意义的观察。一旦确定，这些都可以用于新发现的孤立牙齿的分类学识别。考虑到有关上新世植物多样性的最新假设以及在澳大利亚阿纳米斯 - 澳大利亚河畔阿法西斯谱系中的种种模式的最新假设，对获得的结果进行了解释。此外，该项目产生的牙冠牙冠的闭合图像，化石铸件的三维扫描以及牙科指标，非概述和具有里程碑意义的测量值对未来的研究非常重要。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过该基金会的知识优点和广泛的影响来通过评估来通过评估来进行评估，并以评估值得进行评估。