Two-point time-series of dental wear scores for baboon mandibular second molars

The pattern and rate of dental wear is often used in paleontology, paleoanthropology, and osteoarchaeology to infer age of the individual, abrasiveness of diet, masticatory function, etc. There are numerous hypotheses as to the relative impact of various parameters on the rate of dental wear in primates. However, these studies are complicated by the fact that most samples of dental wear are derived from wild populations. Here, we investigated the rate of molar wear in a captive colony of baboons (Papio hamadryas) from the Southwest National Primate Research Center (San Antonio, Texas). These animals lived in similar group cages and had access to the same uniform diet of monkey chow. Thereby, many of the potential contributing factors to tooth wear have been held constant. We investigated rate of wear with data from two time-points in the life of each animal. The first time-point was captured during life when the individual was anesthetized, a high-resolution dental mold was taken, and f..., We provide tab-delimited text files that contain the data analyzed for the published study.
For information on the scoring system, see Krueger et al. (2025).
The KruegerScottScore.txt file includes the sex, date-of-birth, date-of-death, date-of-dental-casting, and a qualitative score that reflects the degree of wear on each of the four quadrants of the mandibular second molar of 202 baboons from the captive colony at the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC). Individual baboons are refered to by W# (an identification number assigned to them when the skulls were incorporated into a collection then-curated at Washington University in St. Louis). The birth and death dates are from the SNPRC. The date of the dental-mold/dental-casting is from the records of Leslea Hlusko, as she took the molds in coordination with the SNPRC.
The scoring system was developed by Kristin Krueger, modifying the method of Scott (1979) to conform to the shape of baboons molars. The degree of wear was..., , # Two-point time-series of dental wear scores for baboon mandibular second molars

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3j9kd51vf](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3j9kd51vf)

## Description of the data and file structure

The data file has eleven columns and 808 rows of data. We collected data from 202 individuals. Each individual has four rows of data, reporting the wear score for each of the four molar quadrants.

#### File: KruegerScottScores.txt

**Description:** Each variable is described below.

##### Variables

* **Specimen number (W#):** This reports the identification number of the individual baboon that was given when the skull was entered into the collection at Washington University St. Louis.
* **Sex:** This reports either \"male\" or \"female\", and is based on the sex designation by the veterinarians at the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC).
* **Tooth position:** Data were collected by molar quadrant. Therefore, each individual animal has four rows of data, one for e...,