Differentiating taphonomic features from trampling and dietary microwear, an experimental approach

ABSTRACT

Dental microwear is a common and wellestablished technique which allows the short-term reconstruction of the dietary behaviour in extinct and extant vertebrates, allowing inferences about daily, seasonal, or regional variations in diets. However, the use of this method may be limited because taphonomic processes can affect enamel surfaces and modify or obliterate dietary microwear features. Considering the substantial number of agents which can impact the archaeological record, dental microwear alteration processes are poorly known, producing a potential bias in dietary interpretations. In this study, the effect of trampling on dental occlusal surfaces, one of the most common processes recorded in archaeological assemblages, has been experimentally investigated for the first time. The results allowed us to (1) distinguish taphonomic and dietary marks; (2) assess the impacts of trampling on occlusal surfaces; and (3) infer the agents which modified the dental microwear from the teeth obtained from the archaeological sites. The importance of this work lies in the specific guidelines it offers to discriminate trampling marks from microwear features, improving the reliability of dietary interpretations.

KEYWORDS:

• Dietary reconstructions
• Microwear
• Taphonomy
• Biases
• Archaeological Experiment

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge to Les Closanes Rural Tourism for offering us a space to perform the experiment. We are also grateful to all the archaeologists who participated during the 2020 excavation that helped us in the labelling tasks: Paulo Dunyó, Goizane Alonso, Andrea García, Marcos Pizarro, Gabriel Cifuentes, Valentina Lubrano and Antigone Uzunidis. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments made to improve earlier versions of this paper. We are grateful to Maria Dolors Guillén (research technical support at the Institut Català de Palaeoecologia Humana i Evolució Social) by the photographs taken for this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

CM, RB, JR, FR conceived/designed the experiment. CM analysed the materials and interpreted the results with contributions from RB and FR. AM analysed and described the features of the sediments. BJ-G performed the statistical analysis. CM wrote the original draft with input from RB, AM, BJ-G, JR and FR. All authors contributed to the manuscript and approved the definitive version, and all authors qualifying for authorship are listed.

Data availability

The sample used for the experiment, all measurements of the striae, and percentages of explained variances of the Correspondence Analysis (CA), results of the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis of the principal chemical composition of the sediments and some examples of alterations found on teeth from Toll and Teixoneres Cave have been included as supplementary files.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2023.2184690

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the ‘María de Maeztu’ excellence accreditation (CEX2019-000945-M) and the project PID2019-103987GB-C31. CM is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training with a FPI Predoctoral Grant (Ref. PRE2020-092116) associated to project PID2019-103987GB-C31. R.B. is supported by a Ramón y Cajal research contract by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (RYC2019-026386-I) and develops her work within the Spanish MINECO/FEDER project PID2019-104949GB-I00 and the Generalitat de Catalunya-AGAUR projects 2021 SGR 01237 and ARQ001SOL-183-2022. A.M. is supported by the Ministry of Universities through NextGenerationEU funding and the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience plan. B.J-G is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training with a FPU Predoctoral Grant (Ref. FPU20/01017);Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional [FPU20/01017,RYC2019-026386-I];