Pregnancy and lactation are ‘crisis’ events, when there are significant demands on the mother to provide sufficient calcium for the foetus and the new born baby. EU research has developed a new, more reliable method for establishing these life history events from tooth microstructure.
Some studies on living humans and great apes have indicated that life history parameters (LHPs) such as pregnancies, skeletal trauma, and kidney disease can be identified from hypomineralised growth layers of tooth cementum, the surface layer of the tooth root. Lack of available calcium at the mineralisation front of the cementum during those events causes formation of a growth layer where the enamel and dentine are softer than normal.
Further details: A new method based on tooth microstructure for life history detection