B. Holly Smith SBR- 9408408 A comparison of the pattern of human development with that of other primates and mammals shows that our "life history" is particulary extreme, characterized by prolonged juvenile development, long life, extremely helpless infants, and a short duration of breast feeding, among other features. Classic work in primatology suggests that the dentition is closely adated to growth rate and other life cycle characteristics. This research project will, by establishing a large comparative data set on the development of the teeth in primates and other mammals, establish a framework that will allow the retrieval of the evolution of life history descriptions from the fossil record. Research will investigate how the state of the dentition at birth, sequence and age of tooth emergence, are related to precosity of the young at birth, age of weaning, overall growth rate in sepcies, and so on. It is a novel and important approach to old questions. Panthrojfried9408408.abs
