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John Charles Willman, new Marie Curie researcher at IPHES to study the use of “teeth-as-tools”
The chronological focus, between 9,000 and 3,000 years ago, provides an ideal case study given the extensive socioeconomic reorganization that is attributable to the transition from foraging to food production including increases in social stratification and task specialization
John Charles Willman, originally from the United States where he obtained his Ph.D. in Anthropology at Washington University in Saint Louis, recently joined the research staff at IPHES (Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social) funded through a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2016) awarded by the European Research Council. The fellowship funds postdoctoral research on the IDENTITIES project (Integrative Approaches to Dental Wear: Non-Masticatory Tooth-Use Across the Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition Among Iberian Foraging and Farming Societies), focusing on the cultural use of “teeth-as-tools”.
John Charles Willman at IPHES
John will conduct postdoctoral research on the IDENTITIES project over the course of two years at IPHES. His research focuses on human dental wear related to the non-masticatory use of the dentition, or the use of “teeth-as-tools”, among human groups from Mesolithic, Neolithic, Copper and Bronze Age contexts across the Iberian Peninsula. Ultimately, the data generated will address how biocultural changes in non-masticatory tooth-use reflect changing social identities across archaeological groups. The chronological focus (~9,000-3,000 BP) provides an ideal case study given the extensive socioeconomic reorganization that is attributable to the transition from foraging to food production including increases in social stratification and task specialization.
A further research aim within the IDENTITIES project is to establish an integrative methodology to document non-masticatory dental wear. This will be accomplished with an interdisciplinary approach that brings together experts in microscopy, experimental methods, bio/archaeology, and paleoanthropology. Methods include recent advances in Gigapixel-like imaging strategies, confocal and scanning electron microscopy, and three-dimensional dental topographic methods to analyze experimentally-worn and bioarchaeological samples. A further benefit, and goal, of the integrative methodology is to cross-validate existing methodologies and advance the study of surface modification in bio/archaeology, paleoanthropology, and allied fields.