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The dental sample recovered from the Sima de los Huesos (SH) Middle Pleistocene cave site of the Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain) includes 296 specimens. Interproximal wear grooves have been observed in 20 maxillary and mandibular posterior teeth belonging to at least five of the 32 individuals identified so far in the SH hypodigm. Interproximal grooving affected only the adults, and at an age between 25 and 40 years. The appearance, morphology, and location pattern of the SH wear grooves are similar to those reported in other fossil hominids and in more recent human populations. Two alternative proposals, the toothpicking and the fiber or sinew processing hypotheses, compete for explaining the formation of this anomalous wear. The characteristics observed in the wear grooves of the SH teeth are compatible only with the habitual probing of interdental spaces by means of hard and inflexible objects. Dietary grit may also have contributed to the abrasion of the root walls during the motion of the dental probes. KEY WORDS interproximal wear grooves; Middle Pleistocene; Atapuerca-SH; teeth

Studies the prevalence and chronology of enamel hypoplasias in a hominid dental sample at the Sierra de Atapuerca in Spain. Hypoplasias in permanent dentition; Enamel defect in the decidous tooth; Highest frequency of enamel hypoplasia; Comparison of the prevalence and severity of the hypoplasias of the hominid sample and a large Neandertal sample.