%0 Journal Article
%A Weber, Katrin
%A Winkler, Daniela E.
%A Schulz-Kornas, E.
%A Kaiser, Thomas M.
%A Tütken, Thomas
%+ Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society
%T Post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes—do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena? : 
%G eng
%U https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000A-0894-6
%R 10.7717/peerj.12635
%7 2022-01-14
%D 2022
%8 14.01.2022
%* Review method: peer-reviewed
%X Experimental approaches are often used to better understand the mechanisms behind<br>and consequences of post-mortem alteration on proxies for diet reconstruction.<br>Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is such a dietary proxy, using dental wear<br>features in extant and extinct taxa to reconstruct feeding behaviour and mechanical<br>food properties. In fossil specimens especially, DMTA can be biased by post-mortem<br>alteration caused by mechanical or chemical alteration of the enamel surface. Here<br>we performed three different dental surface alteration experiments to assess the effect<br>of common taphonomic processes by simplifying them: (1) tumbling in sediment<br>suspension to simulate fluvial transport, (2) sandblasting to simulate mechanical<br>erosion due to aeolian sediment transport, (3) acid etching to simulate chemical<br>dissolution by stomach acid. For tumbling (1) we found alteration to be mainly<br>dependent on sediment grain size fraction and that on specimens tumbled with sand<br>fractions mainly post-mortem scratches formed on the dental surface, while specimens<br>tumbled with a fine-gravel fraction showed post-mortem formed dales. Sandblasting<br>(2) with loess caused only negligible alteration, however blasting with fine sand quartz<br>particles resulted in significant destruction of enamel surfaces and formation of large<br>post-mortem dales. Acid etching (3) using diluted hydrochloric acid solutions in<br>concentrations similar to that of predator stomachs led to a complete etching of the<br>whole dental surface, which did not resemble those of teeth recovered from owl pellets.<br>The experiments resulted in post-mortem alteration comparable, but not identical to<br>naturally occurring post-mortem alteration features. Nevertheless, this study serves<br>as a first assessment and step towards further, more refined taphonomic experiments<br>evaluating post-mortem alteration of dental microwear texture (DMT).
%K Animal Behavior; Paleontology; Zoology; Dental microwear; Diet; Post-mortem wear; Vertebrate enamel; Experimental alteration; Fluvial transport; Aeolian sediment transport; Chemical dissolution
%J PeerJ
%V 10
%] e12635
%@ 2167-8359