Résumé
Dental inner structural organization is a key diagnostic element for assessing fossil primatetaxa. It is now recognized that throughout hominid evolution, and especially in Homo, enamelthickness (ET) varied quickly and repeatedly, thus more closely reverberatingmicroevolutionary fluctuations. In contrast, the more stable and conservative underlyingdentine, more accurately reflects macroevolutionary changes. In fact, while ET is generallyconsidered an indicator of taxonomic affinities, it varies with respect to a number of bio-ecological determinants, such as life span, sexual dimorphism, and of course dietary habits.However, the prevalent signal of enamel (i.e., taxonomic vs. functional) remains uncertain.Conversely, the enamel-dentine junction (EDJ) is a reliable proxy to discriminate hominid taxa,even at sub-specific level. In dental (paleo)anthropology, ET and EDJ are routinely assessedseparately, characterizing the former using "average" estimates (such as the relative ET index)and qualitative evaluation of its distribution cartographies, and the latter by advancedmorphometric methods. Here we introduce an original surface matching-based approach toquantify and statistically compare chromatic cartographies representing ET distribution and theEDJ shape. We applied this method to a limited set of unworn maxillary and mandibular M1s(N=39) representing the extant hominids. By using PCA and between-group PCA, wedistinguish the four great ape taxa either for the ET or EDJ maps. When the results from bothtooth tissues are combined, even if some taxa overlap, a taxonomic signal is still detectable.This exploratory study highlights the promising prospects of this method, notably to investigatethe primate fossil record.