Jawbones are ‘shaped by diet’

Diet has shaped human jaw bones; a result that could help explain why many people suffer with overcrowded teeth.

The study has shown that jaws grew shorter and broader as humans took on a more pastoral lifestyle.

Before this, developing mandibles were probably strengthened to give hunter-gatherers greater bite force.

The results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This is a fascinating study which challenges the common perception that there has been little recent change in the morphology of humans,” said anthropologist Jay Stock from the University of Cambridge.

BBC News – Jawbones are ‘shaped by diet’, a study finds