Trace Element Patterns in Juvenile Wild Chimpanzee Dentitions
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Arora, Manish
Bharatiya, Maya
Leonard, Nicole
Zhao, Jian‐xin
Austin, Christine
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Abstract
Trace elements are used to infer mammalian early-life diets, environmental toxins, dispersal patterns, stress histories, and weaning ages. Here, we employ laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) to reveal elemental patterns in our closest living relatives, chimpanzees. Multielemental maps of the enamel and dentine of 12 teeth from five wild-born chimpanzees vary considerably. It appears that spatiotemporal patterns of Ba/Ca and Sr/Ca are unlikely to yield reliable weaning ages in wild chimpanzees. Overall similarities implicate the consumption of plant foods rich in both Ba and Sr; these metals remain bioavailable for chimpanzees and other primates well beyond species-typical weaning ages.
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Archaeometry
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DP210101913
FT200100390
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© 2025 The Author(s). Archaeometry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of University of Oxford. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
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Archaeological science
Archaeology
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Smith, TM; Arora, M; Bharatiya, M; Leonard, N; Zhao, J; Austin, C, Trace Element Patterns in Juvenile Wild Chimpanzee Dentitions, Archaeometry, 2025