Generalized Individual Dental Age Stages for Fossil and Extant Placental Mammals
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227336602 Generalized individual dental age stages for fossil and extant placental mammals Article in Paläontologische Zeitschrift · September 2011 DOI: 10.1007/s12542-011-0098-9 CITATIONS READS 32 745 4 authors: Ulrike Anders Wighart Von Koenigswald University of Bonn University of Bonn 7 PUBLICATIONS 94 CITATIONS 162 PUBLICATIONS 2,562 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Irina Ruf B. Holly Smith Senckenberg Research Institute George Washington University 48 PUBLICATIONS 639 CITATIONS 81 PUBLICATIONS 4,307 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Pleistocene faunas View project Microstructure in mammalian enamels View project All content following this page was uploaded by Wighart Von Koenigswald on 17 May 2014. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Pala¨ontol Z DOI 10.1007/s12542-011-0098-9 RESEARCH PAPER Generalized individual dental age stages for fossil and extant placental mammals Ulrike Anders • Wighart von Koenigswald • Irina Ruf • B. Holly Smith Received: 20 August 2010 / Accepted: 7 February 2011 Ó Springer-Verlag 2011 Abstract The traditional age stages for eutherian mam- vorgeschlagen, das auf dem Zahndurchbruch und der mals (infant, juvenile, adult, senile) can be difficult to Abrasion beruht. Sechs individuelle Altersstadien ‘‘indi- apply in the fossil record. Based on the tooth eruption and vidual dental age stages’’ (IDAS) werden definiert, die das wear of the cheek teeth we propose six ‘‘individual dental breite Spektrum der Placentalia abzudecken vermag. Die age stages’’ (IDAS) that can be applied to almost all fossil IDAS Stadien umfassen dabei die gesamte Lebensspanne and extant mammalian dentitions. The six stages of IDAS und korrelieren mit den neu definierten traditionellen cover the entire life span. Traditional terms can be corre- Bezeichnungen in folgender Weise: IDAS 0—pra¨natal, lated to the IDAS stages and thus redefined based on the IDAS 1—infantil, IDAS 2—juvenil, IDAS 3—adult, IDAS dentition: IDAS 0—prenatal, IDAS 1—infant, IDAS 2— 4—spa¨t adult und IDAS 5—senil. Daru¨ber hinaus erlaubt das juvenile, IDAS 3—adult, IDAS 4—late adult, and IDAS IDAS System, die La¨nge der Entwicklungsphasen ver- 5—senile. Furthermore IDAS enables comparison between schiedener Taxa, bis hin zu Ordnungen zu vergleichen und individuals, characterizing the mortality in monospecific damit zu charakterisieren. Ebenso bietet sich die Mo¨glich- populations, and even of entire communities composed of keit die Altersverteilung in fossilen Populationen fu¨r eine various species. The data obtained can be used for paleo- Art, aber auch fu¨r ganze Vergesellschaftungen in einer ecological interpretations. The varying duration of different Fundstelle zu vergleichen. Damit ero¨ffnet das IDAS-System stages in the IDAS pattern during the life history forms an Wege, Beitra¨ge zu verschiedenen pala¨oo¨kologischen Fragen additional way to characterize mammalian groups by zu liefern. development and wear of their dentition. Schlu¨sselwo¨rter Eutheria Á Altersstadien Á Bezahnung Á Keywords Eutheria Á Age stages Á Dentition Á Attrition Á Pala¨oo¨kologie Dental attrition Á Paleoecology Kurzfassung Altersbestimmungen durch die traditionel- Introduction len Begriffe infantil, juvenil, adult oder senil kann fu¨r fossile Eutheria meist nur bedingt angewendet werden. Deswegen Classification of individual age of fossil and extant euthe- wird hier ein generell anwendbares Alterssystem (IDAS) rian mammals is important for ecological investigations and paleoecological reconstructions. Most aging schemes were established for wildlife management (e.g., Severing- & U. Anders ( ) Á W. von Koenigswald Á I. Ruf haus 1949; Gee et al. 2002) and for the understanding of Steinmann-Institut fu¨r Geologie, Mineralogie und Pala¨ontologie, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universita¨t Bonn, Nussallee 8, mammal populations in terms of life span, mortality, herd 53115 Bonn, Germany growth, and reaction to ecological factors (Severinghaus e-mail: [email protected] 1949; Rausch 1961; Lowe 1967; Morris 1972). The age of single individuals also has particular importance for B. H. Smith Museum of Anthropology, The University of Michigan, forensic identification in modern humans (e.g., Gustafson Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107, USA 1950; Smith 1992). For the interpretation of fossils, 123 U. Anders et al. individual age can establish the pace of life history (Bro- species aging system for extant species. The great diversity mage and Dean 1985). in the dentition of placental mammals with reduction of The goal of most aging studies is to age the animal in several tooth positions limits the comparability to some years, whether based on fusion of the epiphyses or sutures degree, but slight modifications within the IDAS system in the skeleton (e.g., Brothwell 1972; Driesch 1976; allow including those taxa as well. These deviations from Knußman and Martin 1988;Sa´nchez-Villagra 2010) or size the normal IDAS system are new characteristics for the of horns in bovids and antlers in cervids (e.g., Fuller 1959; various mammalian groups. Finally, we redefine the tra- Chaplin and White 1969; Miura 1985). Others use char- ditional terms ‘‘prenatal’’, ‘‘infant’’, ‘‘juvenile’’, ‘‘adult’’, acters in the dentition, such as tooth eruption and wear ‘‘late adult’’, and ‘‘senile’’ for extant and fossil taxa with (e.g., Nostrand and Stephenson 1964; Gustafson 1950; the IDAS system based on tooth eruption and wear. Lowe 1967; Goddard 1970; Habermehl 1975, 1985; Louguet 2006; Magnell and Carter 2007; Greenfield and Arnold 2008; Munro et al. 2009; Kelley and Schwartz Materials and methods 2010) or the annual cementum layers on roots in teeth (e.g., Adams and Watkins 1967; Linhart and Knowlton 1967; For the definition of the six IDAS stages we use the fol- Reimers and Nordby 1968; Wolfe 1969; Crowe 1972; lowing characters: eruption of the deciduous and perma- Gasaway et al. 1978; Bodkin et al. 1997; Hamlin et al. nent dentition, first wear facets on molars, loss of 2000; Costello et al. 2004; Roksandic et al. 2009). These structured occlusal surface, and breakdown of the denti- age classifications are often very detailed and complex, but tion. Our study is based on a broad survey of placental applicable only to the species on which they are based, e.g., mammalian dentitions. The investigated species are almost Gazella gazella (Munro et al. 2009), Diceros bicornis all undomesticated to minimize possible human impact on (Goddard 1970) or a very close relative (e.g., Adam 1994). life span. For the design of the IDAS stages, but prior to Due to the great differences in maximum life span of testing and comparing the system on different species, mammals, establishing the age of an individual at death, information about tooth eruption and tooth wear was however, tells us little about its stage of life, and is only gathered from a large number of fossil and extant indi- meaningful with reference to some other events within the viduals from various orders (Lagomorpha, Rodentia, Arti- particular species. Even the classical terms juvenile, adult, odactyla, and Carnivora) (Appendix 1). In addition, we and senile may be poorly defined and difficult to compare investigated tooth eruption shortly after birth in serial between different species (see Table 1 below). histological sections of perinatal stages of seven rodent and For paleontological questions especially, the dentition is two lagomorph species (Appendix 1). Available informa- a useful base for aging, since dentitions are well docu- tion from various orders (Rodentia, Chiroptera, Scandentia, mented in the fossil record. Therefore, we propose a gen- Carnivora, Primates, Perissodactyla, Artiodactyla, and eralized system of IDAS (individual dental age stages) that Proboscidea) concerning tooth eruption, tooth wear, and is not based on years but on tooth eruption and tooth wear. life history (weaning, maturity, individual age, and maxi- By defining functional key points in our classification mum life span) were added from literature (Appendix 2). independent of calendar years, we hope to minimize the The resulting data are used to estimate the length of the effect of the great diversity in maximum life span and IDAS stages among different eutherian mammals. We then construct a standard useful to describe an individual or an correlate the duration of the various IDAS stages with assemblage. maximum life span (data from Nowak 1999; Weigl 2005). We are well aware that individual age determination Furthermore, mortality distributions of different fossil based on the IDAS system cannot be as precise as a single populations are identified based on the IDAS system. Table 1 Correlation of the IDAS stages to age determinations of different species to illustrate the transferability of the IDAS system IDAS Common use but Schultz (primates) Knußmann 1988 (humans) Grau et al. 1970 Goddard 1970 rarely defined (racoons) (rhinoceros) 1935 1960 0 Prenatal Fetus 1 Juvenile Infantile Young Infans I, II Class I–VI 2 Juvenile Juvenis Class VII–XI 3 Adult Adult Adult Adultus/matures Class I–III Class XII–XVI 4 Class IV Class XVII–XVIII 5 Senile Old Senilis Class V Class XIX–XX 123 Generalized individual dental age stages for fossil and extant placental mammals Lastly, as an example for the mortality in a complex fossil • IDAS 2 (juvenile) covers the period from the first facets site, we construct