Enamel Prism Patterns of European Hominoids — and Their Phylogenetical Aspects

Everybody concerned with questions of taxonomy and phylogeny knows that a large part of information used to classify fossil vertebrates is derived from teeth. This comes from the reasoning that teeth are the best mineralized portions of the skeleton and thus usually also the best preserved remains. The best preserved portion of teeth is again the most highly mineralized — the enamel. That the enamel shows a so-called prism pattern, which differs markedly within mammals and also within the primates, is well known since Carter (1922) and Regan (1930) published articles concerning the variability of enamel prism patterns. These were for the first time described by Tomes in 1848. An intensive i…