Doctoral Dissertation Research: Faunal dental microwear texture for fine-scale reconstruction of hominin paleoenvironments

许多重要的古人类和考古遗址代表了复杂的马赛克古环境，需要高空间分辨率才能正确表征。本研究提出了一种利用啮齿类动物牙齿微磨损在这些地点进行精细环境重建的新方法，这些啮齿动物的栖息地范围小，在不同的栖息地都有大量发现。该项目将收集啮齿动物牙齿微磨损的数据，并将微磨损分析与正在进行的独立啮齿动物生态研究相结合。这些分析将导致微磨损纹理模式与饮食和环境数据的详细联系，这将帮助我们更好地利用啮齿动物牙齿化石重建古栖息地。该奖项为来自EPSCoR州的女研究生提供研究支持。它还为本科生提供研究机会，并促进阿肯色大学和南非国家博物馆之间的国际合作。由于缺乏研究样本中特定个体的栖息地或饮食信息，对啮齿动物牙齿微磨损结构的研究受到限制。本项目将通过将这些个体的门牙和磨牙微磨损纹理模式与胃内容物以及它们记录的栖息地、植物组成和大气粉尘负荷联系起来，试图解决这一问题。该项目主要关注三个核心问题：(1)饮食的个体差异是否会反映在磨牙微磨损纹理的差异上？(2)生境开放程度和相关粉尘水平对切牙微磨损有何影响？(3)切牙和磨牙的微磨损模式是否反映了啮齿动物微生境的植物组成和粉尘负荷？共同项目负责人将研究来自南非中部自由州Kolomela矿山正在进行的环境评估项目的啮齿动物，以回答这些问题。她将获得每个啮齿动物捕获地点的粉尘水平和花卉组成的信息。饮食细节将通过对每个标本的胃内容物分析得出。然后，这些数据将与门牙和磨牙微磨损纹理分析产生的标准定量描述符相关联。

Many significant hominin and archaeological sites represent complex, mosaic paleoenvironments that require high spatial resolution to be properly characterized. This study presents a new approach to fine-scale environmental reconstruction at these sites using tooth microwear in rodents, which have small home ranges and are found in abundance in different habitats. The project will collect data on rodent dental microwear, and will combine microwear analysis with ongoing and independent rodent ecological research. These analyses will result in a detailed association of microwear texture patterns with diet and environmental data that will help us better reconstruct paleohabitats using fossil rodent teeth. This award provides research support to a female graduate student from an EPSCoR state. It also provides research opportunities for undergraduates and fosters international collaboration between the University of Arkansas and the National Museum of South Africa.Research on rodent dental microwear textures has been limited because of a lack of information about habitat or diet for specific individuals in a study sample. This project will attempt to address this problem by associating incisor and molar microwear texture patterns with stomach contents of those same individuals, as well as their documented habitat floral composition and atmospheric dust load. The project focuses on three core questions: (1) Will individual differences in diet be reflected in differences in molar microwear textures? (2) What effect does habitat openness and associated dust level have on incisor microwear? and (3) Do incisor and molar microwear patterns reflect the floral composition and dust loads of rodent microhabitats? The co-PI will study rodents from an on-going environmental assessment project at the Kolomela Mine in the Central Free State of South Africa to answer these questions. She will obtain information on the dust levels and floral composition at each rodent capture site. Diet details will be derived through stomach content analysis of each specimen. These data will then be associated with standard quantitative descriptors that result from incisor and molar dental microwear texture analysis.