# title
Icarus, Isotopes, and Australopith Diets

# abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>                <jats:p>Early hominin diets can be studied in many ways, such as dental allometry/morphology, dental microwear, and archaeology (e.g., Robinson, 1954; Isaac, 1971; Grine, 1981). Although these and other techniques are commonly used to reconstruct diet, we rarely question the degree to which they are actually capable of doing so. For instance, in the strictest sense, dental morphology cannot tell us about the totality of an organisms diet, but it can tell us about the foods that proved challenging to that organisms ancestors, whether they were consumed daily, seasonally, or only during short periods of extreme privation. Thus, while there certainly is an important relationship between dental morphology and diet, it is far less direct than researchers often assume. Dental microwear, in turn, does reveal something of what an individual ingested; yet, it probably tells us mostly about the mechanical properties of these foods and the exogenous grit with which they are associated. A main point of this disquisition is not to suggest that these tools and others are not useful because they patently are useful and important, but rather that we often talk about reconstructing diet, when we are in fact illuminating only facets of the complicated interactions between an organism and its environment that broadly constitute diet.</jats:p>

# authorList[]
Sponheimer, M., Lee-Thorp, J., & De Ruiter, D.