Significance of enamel thickness in hominoid evolution

Abstract

Enamel thickness has assumed unique importance in the debate about the hominid status of Ramapithecus, despite the fact that there is little agreement about the meaning of ‘thick enamel’ or the significance of enamel thickness for hominoid taxonomy^1–19. My aim here is to evaluate the usefulness of enamel thickness and microstructure as characteristics for determining the relationships of the later Miocene hominoids, based both on a quantitative study of enamel thickness in extant hominoids and four species of later Miocene Sivapithecus (including ‘Ramapithecus’) and on scanning electron microscope analysis of enamel microstructure²⁰. Four categories of enamel thickness are defined metrically here and have been related to enamel microstructure and developmental rates. Thin fast-formed (pattern 3) enamel represents the ancestral condition in hominoids; it increased developmentally to thick pattern 3 enamel in the great ape and human clade and that condition is primitively retained in Homo and in the fossil hominoid Sivapithecus (including ‘Ramapithecus’). Enamel thickness has been secondarily reduced in the African apes and also, although at a different rate and extent, in the orang-utan. Thick enamel, previously the most important characteristic in arguments about the earliest hominid, does not therefore identify a hominid.