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Post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes—do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena?
Experimental approaches are often used to better understand the mechanisms behind and consequences of post-mortem alteration on proxies for diet reconstruction. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is such a dietary proxy, using dental wear features in extant and extinct taxa to reconstruct feed...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8763041/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35174011 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12635 |
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author | Weber, Katrin Winkler, Daniela E. Schulz-Kornas, Ellen Kaiser, Thomas M. Tütken, Thomas |
author_facet | Weber, Katrin Winkler, Daniela E. Schulz-Kornas, Ellen Kaiser, Thomas M. Tütken, Thomas |
author_sort | Weber, Katrin |
collection | PubMed |
description | Experimental approaches are often used to better understand the mechanisms behind and consequences of post-mortem alteration on proxies for diet reconstruction. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is such a dietary proxy, using dental wear features in extant and extinct taxa to reconstruct feeding behaviour and mechanical food properties. In fossil specimens especially, DMTA can be biased by post-mortem alteration caused by mechanical or chemical alteration of the enamel surface. Here we performed three different dental surface alteration experiments to assess the effect of common taphonomic processes by simplifying them: (1) tumbling in sediment suspension to simulate fluvial transport, (2) sandblasting to simulate mechanical erosion due to aeolian sediment transport, (3) acid etching to simulate chemical dissolution by stomach acid. For tumbling (1) we found alteration to be mainly dependent on sediment grain size fraction and that on specimens tumbled with sand fractions mainly post-mortem scratches formed on the dental surface, while specimens tumbled with a fine-gravel fraction showed post-mortem formed dales. Sandblasting (2) with loess caused only negligible alteration, however blasting with fine sand quartz particles resulted in significant destruction of enamel surfaces and formation of large post-mortem dales. Acid etching (3) using diluted hydrochloric acid solutions in concentrations similar to that of predator stomachs led to a complete etching of the whole dental surface, which did not resemble those of teeth recovered from owl pellets. The experiments resulted in post-mortem alteration comparable, but not identical to naturally occurring post-mortem alteration features. Nevertheless, this study serves as a first assessment and step towards further, more refined taphonomic experiments evaluating post-mortem alteration of dental microwear texture (DMT). |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8763041 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-87630412022-02-15 Post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes—do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena? Weber, Katrin Winkler, Daniela E. Schulz-Kornas, Ellen Kaiser, Thomas M. Tütken, Thomas PeerJ Animal Behavior Experimental approaches are often used to better understand the mechanisms behind and consequences of post-mortem alteration on proxies for diet reconstruction. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is such a dietary proxy, using dental wear features in extant and extinct taxa to reconstruct feeding behaviour and mechanical food properties. In fossil specimens especially, DMTA can be biased by post-mortem alteration caused by mechanical or chemical alteration of the enamel surface. Here we performed three different dental surface alteration experiments to assess the effect of common taphonomic processes by simplifying them: (1) tumbling in sediment suspension to simulate fluvial transport, (2) sandblasting to simulate mechanical erosion due to aeolian sediment transport, (3) acid etching to simulate chemical dissolution by stomach acid. For tumbling (1) we found alteration to be mainly dependent on sediment grain size fraction and that on specimens tumbled with sand fractions mainly post-mortem scratches formed on the dental surface, while specimens tumbled with a fine-gravel fraction showed post-mortem formed dales. Sandblasting (2) with loess caused only negligible alteration, however blasting with fine sand quartz particles resulted in significant destruction of enamel surfaces and formation of large post-mortem dales. Acid etching (3) using diluted hydrochloric acid solutions in concentrations similar to that of predator stomachs led to a complete etching of the whole dental surface, which did not resemble those of teeth recovered from owl pellets. The experiments resulted in post-mortem alteration comparable, but not identical to naturally occurring post-mortem alteration features. Nevertheless, this study serves as a first assessment and step towards further, more refined taphonomic experiments evaluating post-mortem alteration of dental microwear texture (DMT). PeerJ Inc. 2022-01-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8763041/ /pubmed/35174011 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12635 Text en ©2022 Weber et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Animal Behavior Weber, Katrin Winkler, Daniela E. Schulz-Kornas, Ellen Kaiser, Thomas M. Tütken, Thomas Post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes—do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena? |
title | Post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes—do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena? |
title_full | Post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes—do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena? |
title_fullStr | Post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes—do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena? |
title_full_unstemmed | Post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes—do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena? |
title_short | Post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes—do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena? |
title_sort | post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes—do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena? |
topic | Animal Behavior |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8763041/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35174011 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12635 |
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