A University of Otago, New Zealand, PhD pupil analysing dental calculus (hardened plaque) from ancient teeth is helping resolve the inquiry of what flora foods Easter Islanders relied on earlier European contact.
Known to its Polynesian inhabitants every bit Rapa Nui, Easter Island is stance to accept been colonized around the 13th Century together with is famed for its mysterious large rock statues or moai.
Otago Anatomy PhD pupil Monica Tromp together with Idaho State University's Dr John Dudgeon accept only published novel enquiry clearing upwards their previous puzzling finding that suggested palm may accept been a staple flora nutrient for Rapa Nui's population over several centuries.
However, no other business of archaeological or ethnohistoric show supports palm having a dietary operate on Easter Island; inward fact show points to the palm becoming extinct presently afterwards colonization.
Nevertheless, the researchers had establish that the vast bulk of phytoliths (plant microfossils) embedded inside the calculus were from palm trees.
The teeth were from burials excavated inward the early on 1980s from multiple coastal archaeological sites around the island.
To clear upwards the mystery, the span undertook farther analysis, newly published inward theJournal of Archaeological Science. This included identifying starch grains inward the dental calculus removed from xxx teeth.
After removing together with decalcifying the plaque from each tooth, Ms Tromp together with Dr Dudgeon identified starch grains that were consistent amongst modern sweetness potato. None of the recovered grains showed whatever similarities to banana, taro or yam, other starchy plants that are hypothesised to endure business office of the diet.
The researchers went on to exam modern sweetness murphy skins grown inward sediment like to that of Rapa Nui's together with establish that every bit tubers grow, their skins seem to contain palm phytoliths from the soil.
"So this truly bolsters the illustration for sweetness murphy every bit a staple together with of import flora nutrient origin for the Islanders from the fourth dimension the isle was commencement colonised,"Ms Tromp says.
She together with Dr Dudgeon are the commencement biological anthropologists to written report dental calculus inward the Pacific.
"It is an first-class target for looking at the flora component of ancient diets every bit microfossils travel embedded inward dental calculus throughout a person's life. You tin instruct a proficient stance of some of the flora foods people were eating, which is non an slow task.
This enquiry also shows that the flora foods you lot discovery show for inward dental calculus tin come upwards from the environs that foods are grown inward together with non necessarily from the nutrient itself -- this finding has the potential to touching on dental calculus studies worldwide. "
Determining plants' operate inward ancient Oceanic diets is extremely hard due to the scarcity of flora remains, but this enquiry of microscopic flora remains is providing i to a greater extent than slice of the dietary puzzle.