摘要：The present study employs dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) on molar occlusal surfaces from the Croa- tian Neandertal sites of Krapina and Vindija to gain greater insight into their diets. Dental microwear texture anal- ysis (DMTA) data were gathered from 19 molars from Krapina and 4 molars from Vindija using white-light confo- cal microscopy. The scale-sensitive software packages Toothfrax and Sfrax were used to characterize the texture data. The variables used included complexity (Asfc), anisotropy (epLsar), and textural fill volume (Tfv). Based on previous DMTA studies as well as data from analyses of Neandertal calculus, we hypothesized that Vindija and Krapina would have texture values consistent with high meat eaters. Our results indicate that, when compared to Holocene human DMTA data, Vindija and Krapina had relatively low Asfc values (0.84 and 1.12, respectively), which indicates a low surface relief that is consistent with other high meat eaters. While Vindija also had relatively low epLsar (0.0027), Krapina had unusually high epLsar (0.0043) indicating their diet was particularly tough or fibrous. Finally, Vindija had higher Tfv (46,367) than Krapina (35,518), indicating that the Vindija wear features were larger than those of Krapina. We conclude that the diet of the Vindija Neandertals likely contained few hard, brittle foods such as nuts or seeds. The diet of the Krapina Neandertals was more fibrous than that of the Vindija Neandertals, possibly indicating consumption of grasses, tubers, or other unprocessed plants. The results of this study indicate that Krapina and Vindija microwear textures are consistent with high meat consumption, but also indicate that fibrous resources played an important role in their diet.
