Bioarchaeology and Behavior: The People of the Ancient Near East

7. Buccal Dental Microwear as an Indicator of Dietary Habits of the Natufian People of El-Wad and El-Kebarah

7 Buccal Dental Microwear as an Indicator of Dietary Habits of the Natufian People of El-Wad and El-Kebarah Mohammad Alrousan and Alejandro Pérez-Pérez The subsistence strategies of human populations are important biological and social indicators of human adaptation and evolution. The Natufian period in the Near East (13,000–10,300 bp), for example, saw the biological changes resulting from an increased reliance on agriculture for subsistence concurrent with the social changes that accompanied life in permanent settlements. Scholars assume that Natufian period sites across the Near East shared similar shifts in subsistence. This investigation explores homogeneity in human diet through dental microwear analysis of human dentition from two Natufian sites: El-Wad and El-Kebarah. Diet and dietary-related behaviors result from the interaction between food availability in the surrounding environment and food procurement and processing technologies. Biological anthropologists use evidence for diet in skeletal tissues to understand and reconstruct past lifeways. Dental microwear analysis, for example, allows direct reconstruction of dietary composition based on the amount of abrasives chewed with food particles. Microwear analyses of tooth enamel surfaces have explored many research issues, from the reconstruction of the dietary behavior of ancient human populations (Molleson and Jones 1991; Molleson, Jones, and Jones 1993; Pérez-Pérez, Lalueza, and Turbon 1994; Larsen et al. 2001, 84–86; Schmidt 2001; Organ, Teaford, and Larsen 2005; Mahoney 2006; Romero and De Juan 2007; Alrousan and Pérez-Pérez 2008; Alrousan, Pérez-Pérez, and Molleson 2009) to primate ecology and diet (Galbany and Pérez-Pérez 2004; Galbany et al. 2009) and is a method that is being 166 · Mohammad Alrousan and Alejandro Pérez-Pérez continually tightened and improved (Teaford and Oyne 1989; Grine, Ungar , and Teaford 2002; Galbany et al. 2005). Both occlusal microwear (focusing on the bite surface of the teeth) (Molleson and Jones 1990; Molleson , Jones, and Jones 1993; Schmidt 2001; Organ, Teaford, and Larsen 2005; Mahoney 2006; Ungar, Lalueza, and Turbon 2006; El Zaatari 2008) and buccal microwear (on the cheek side of the back teeth) (Pérez-Pérez, Lalueza, and Turbon 1994, 2003; Lalueza et al. 1996; Polo-Cerdá et al. 2007; Romero et al. 2007; Alrousan and Pérez-Pérez 2008; Estaberanz et al. 2009) have been explored in dental microwear studies. The main causes of dental microwear on occlusal and buccal surfaces are abrasive particles in the diet. The source of these particles is either intrinsic or extrinsic to the foodstuffs consumed. Intrinsic sources include the opal phytoliths present in plant tissues (Lalueza et al. 1994), especially in cereals, and the extrinsic sources result from the contamination of food items with dust, ash, or sand during food processing (Mahoney 2006; Alrousan and Pérez-Pérez 2008). Abrasives in the diet cause pits and scratches to form on occlusal tooth crown surfaces (Schmidt 2001) but will cause only striations on the vestibular or buccal surfaces (PérezP érez et al. 2003). In addition, a mainly carnivorous diet tends to be correlated with a large number of vertical striations on the buccal surfaces, whereas a mainly vegetarian diet tends to correlate with higher densities of horizontal striations (Lalueza et al. 1996). The buccal microwear pattern is a reliable, nondestructive, and accurate method for dietary reconstruction because it can reflect dietary changes over the long term rather than provide evidence about the “last supper.” This allows researchers to differentiate between masticatory and nonmasticatory uses of teeth (e.g., as a tool) and identify seasonal changes (Pérez-Pérez, Lalueza, and Turbon 1994, 184–185; Pérez-Pérez 2004; Romero et al. 2009). The Natufian period, which lasted from 13,000 to 10,300 bp (Bar-Yosef 1998; Eshad, Gopher, and Herskovitz 2006), is an important span in human history, although its culture and biology are still poorly known. The first signs of this culture were excavated from the site of Wadi en-Natuf, and for this reason it is known as the Natufian (Garrod 1932, 20). This period is considered to be the threshold of agricultural practices and cereal consumption (Bar-Yosef 1998). By the end of the last glacial period and before the Neolithic “revolution,” the subsistence economy was highly dependent on animal foods, especially large mammals such as gazelle , as well as on gathering wild plant foods, mainly wild cereals (Henry Buccal Dental Microwear as an Indicator...