Patrón de desgaste interdentario en forma de "Subvertical Grooves" en piezas dentarias de los neandertales de Cueva de Sidrón (Asturias)

Resumen

Interproximal tooth wear, caused by tooth-to-tooth contact during food chewing, consists on flat wear surfaces with a great degree of pitting. The degree of wear between teeth depends on the forces involved in food processing and chewing. In some instance, the interproximal wear facets, mainly of molar teeth, show a number of subvertical grooves with a nearly vertical direction. These grooves are mostly present in Neanderthal teeth, but have been described also in Homo Heidelbergensis, some African Hominid teeth and in certain modern hunter-gatherer populations, such as in Australina Aborigines. Subvertical grooves have seldom been ascribed to taphonomic processes, although most probably they are caused by natural biomechanical processes during mastication of hard objetcs included in the diet. They have also been associated to acidic dietary habtis given their radial disposition and their inter-digitalization. The present sutyd analyses the suvertical grooves observed in the Neanderthal dentition of Cueva de Sidrón. Comparisons are made with the similar pattern of interproximal grooves observed in the Neanderthal specimen from Figueira Brava (Portugal) and some remains of H. heidelbergensis from Atapuerca. Similar cases have been described for the Neandertal sites of Genay and Le Fate (France). The results obtained allow discarding a post-mortem origine of these structures. The most probable cause of the subvertical grooves being natural biomechanical chewing processes combined with some dietary habits indicative of hard plant foods ingestion.