Dental Topography

Dental topographic analysis is the study of the functional aspects of tooth shape using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology. We have pioneered the approach combining laser scanning with GIS to model tooth cusps as mountains, fissures as valleys, etc. The resulting data are used to relate tooth form to function in living primates, to infer diets from fossil species (especially earl y hominins), and to consider how tooth shape (and function) change with gross wear that occurs over a lifetime.
Check out our research pages for more information about projects currently using textural analysis.