Hello, I am currently a Human Biology major but I am going to pursue a career in dentistry. Dentistry has a lot to do with evolution and has a big impact on human variability. For example, scientists let it be known that animals use their incisors, strong front teeth, to bite off a piece of meat. It is believed that not all human ancestors have incisors and that these teeth, now, were evolved in humans as the ancestors transitioned from getting their energy mostly from gathering and eating plants to hunting and eating the meat from other animals. However, obviously, humans are not carnivores but are omnivores. That is why not all of human teeth are incisors. The length of canine teeth also had an impact on evolution. The difference in the length of canine teeth depended on main food source and time period for that specific species. The sharpness on the canine teeth also tells us how it was evolved when the types of food being eaten changed.
Bicuspids, or the pre-molars, are short and flat teeth found on both the top and bottom jaw next to the canines. While some processing of food is done at this location, most humans back in the day just used the bicuspids as a way to pass food back farther to the back of the mouth. They are still somewhat sharp and may have been the only teeth in the back of the jaw for some of the early human ancestors that ate mostly meat. Once the incisors were finished tearing the meat, it would get passed back to the bicuspids where more chewing would occur before being swallowed.
I truly believe that that is super interesting and I love that you can tell what a certain persons diet is just from their teeth and I find it wonderful that dentistry has had an impact on being able to discover evolution in teeth. I do believe that the readings and the videos made me see dentistry in a different light. I knew, before, that teeth obviously had a past and did not look like how they are today but this made me truly think about how teeth came about. It made me truly think to myself about why teeth are the shape they are now, why some teeth have different shapes than others and made me understand how some teeth are used to help process specific foods.
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Hi Caitlin,
I am a Human Development and Family Studies major so my outlook at this course is a little different than yours. It was really interesting to think about evolution through dentistry. I have never seen evolution through this lens. My major helps me understand that humans develop over time by adapting and learning things. Dentistry shows us the actual process. I liked how you used examples of incisors. I also liked how you compared animal teeth and human teeth. That really helped put things in perspective. I never thought that teeth might have looked different in the past. It was interesting that you mentioned that part even if you knew of it already. Using dentistry as a way of viewing evolution was a unique process to me, I am glad you shared your thoughts on this topic.