Professor Mark Teaford, vice-chair of the Department of Basic Science at Touro University, California, will present the Department of Archaeology seminar with a talk entitled, "Dental Microwear and Laboratory Primates: Insights and Limitations".  

Abstract: Dental microwear analyses have been used to gain insights into diet and tooth use in extant and fossil taxa. However, we still know far too little about how dental microwear is actually formed. This is due, in part, to the fact that dental microwear analyses of living animals have proven to be extremely difficult. This talk will focus on on-going work with laboratory primates, including the computation of rates of microscopic wear for primates fed different food items and the challenges and limitations of such work.

Bio: Mark Teaford pioneered quantitative analyses of microscopic wear patterns on teeth, or dental microwear analyses. In the course of that work, he has worked with museum collections of extant and fossil taxa, as well as live primates in the wild and in laboratory and clinical settings. He has also been actively involved in the American Association of Physical Anthropologists and recently served as Editor of the Journal of Human Evolution. He received his graduate training in anthropology and anatomy at the University of Illinois and spent much of his career at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently Professor of Basic Science at Touro University California.