This book outlines how the physiology of human mastication is the product of an evolutionary development that has its roots in that of the primates that were our ancestors and, even earlier, in that of mammals. In order to understand deeply who we are, we must know where we come from. This book therefore highlights, in a truly interdisciplinary fashion, how dentistry and paleoanthropology often intersect and how knowledge about both these subjects overlap. By laying anatomical-functional foundations of our oral system, combining dental and paleoanthropological knowledge, this book offers great value to students and scholars of both disciplines.

Andrea Papini has been working as a dentist since 1991 in Prato; passionate about gnathology, he searched paleoanthropology for the species-specific physiological foundations that characterize the chewing of Homo sapiens. He is the author and co-author of scientific articles on anatomy, gnathology, paleoanthropology, neurosurgery.He has authored 16 scientific papers.