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Mandibular morphology and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Westernmost Iberia - PubMed

  • ️Sun Jan 01 2023

Mandibular morphology and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Westernmost Iberia

Ricardo Miguel Godinho et al. Sci Rep. 2023.

Abstract

Neolithic farming and animal husbandry were first developed in the Near East ~ 10,000 BCE and expanded westwards, reaching westernmost Iberia no later than 5500 BCE. It resulted in major social, cultural, economic and dietary changes. Yet, the impact of this change on human mandibular morphology in Iberia is yet to be assessed, which is regrettable because mandible form is impacted by population history and diet. In this study we used Mesolithic to Chalcolithic Iberian samples to examine the impact of this transition on mandibular morphology. We also compared these samples with a Southern Levantine Chalcolithic population to assess their relationship. Lastly, we assessed dental wear to determine if the morphological differences identified were related to the material properties of the diet. We found differences between samples in mandibular shape but not size, which we attribute to contrasting population histories between Mesolithic and later populations. Some differences in the severity of dental wear were also found between Mesolithic and later Iberian samples, and smaller between the Mesolithic Iberians and southern Levantines. Little relationship was found between wear magnitude and mandibular shape. Altogether, our results show that the Mesolithic-Neolithic Iberian transition resulted in a meaningful change in mandibular morphology, which was likely driven more by population history than by dietary change.

© 2023. Springer Nature Limited.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1

Mandibular size (as assessed using centroid size) of specimens (grouped by chronology and geographic origin). No statistically significant differences were found (see details in the text).

Figure 2
Figure 2

PCA of mandibular shape. Individuals are grouped according to chronology and geographic origin. The Mesolithic Iberian and Chalcolithic Levant groups are morphologically distinct, despite some overlap. The post-Mesolithic Iberian specimens are intermediate between the two extreme previous groups (i.e., Mesolithic Iberia and Chalcolithic Levant), overlapping with both. The mandible insets represent the morphology of the specimens at the extremes of the PC axes (e.g., the mandible at the bottom left corner represents the morphology of a hypothetical specimen located at the negative end of PCs 1 and 2).

Figure 3
Figure 3

Dental wear magnitude, scored according to B.H. Smith , across Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic groups. Results for the Iberian and Levantine samples are shown separately. In the Levantine sample there are no Mesolithic or Late Neolithic—Chalcolithic specimens, and only one Neolithic specimen.

Figure 4
Figure 4

Rate of dental wear in different periods. Results are shown separately for the Iberian and Levantine samples. The Levantine Neolithic sample was not included in the analysis because it comprised only one individual.

Figure 5
Figure 5

Map with geographical and chronological origin of the samples (not-to-scale). The map was created using the rnaturalearth and ggplot2 packages of the R software.

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