When Griffith Associate Professor Tanya Smith entertains the World Science Festival Brisbane audience with the many tales teeth tell, they’ll be pondering much more than what they’ve just eaten at the Brainfood Breakfast event (22 March).
The Biological Anthropologist turns back time to reveal the secrets of ancient teeth and the stories they tell of human evolution, childhood development and prehistoric behaviour.
“Teeth have this amazing record locked inside them for million of years, “ says Associate Professor Smith.
“When we grow our teeth they’re almost like fossils already.”
Amazingly accurate records
Teeth don’t decay like other evidence of our evolution, holding records of birth and childhood growth inside them for millions of years.
And the former Harvard researcher, now part of the Griffith’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), says they’re fortunate to have many tooth specimens to study, compared to the limited number of human bones in the fossil record.
“When we look at the