Many anthropological studies have examined the functional implications of enamel thickness in human dental crowns. Despite limitations, Enamel thickness (ET) values are still used to infer taxonomic attribution in the genus Homo, and to identify mechanisms of functional adaptation against macrowear. However, only a few studies have tried to describe the possible relationship between ET and dental wear patterns in permanent lower first molars (M₁) aiming to observe whether an adaptive response to the environmental and cultural context is detectable. The present work aims to investigate a possible signal of ET adaptive response in M₁ (wear stage 3; Molnar, 1971) belonging to individuals who lived between the Neolithic (early 6th millennium BCE) and the Bronze Age (second half of the 2nd millennium BCE) in Croatia to identify any signal of change in dental tissue proportions based on archaeologically documented shifts in population structure and subsistence strategies. In order to do so, we explored 3D Average Enamel Thickness (AET) of the entire crown and wear pattern distribution among individuals and across chronological groups. We then described a new method called “Enamel Thickness per Masticatory Phases” (ETMP) involving the creation of virtual sections cutting enamel and coronal dentine in three parts based on masticatory phases, and explored the distribution of 3D AET accordingly. Finally, we performed geometric morphometric analysis on dental crown to ascertain possible morphological differences between Neolithic, Eneolithic, and Bronze Age groups. Results show that Bronze Age individuals differ from previous groups due to 1) higher values of ET in both the entire crown and specifically in the buccal area, 2) to an extensive wear pattern localized on the buccal side, and 3) to the distal extension of the hypoconid together with an extended mesio-distal shape of the crown. These patterns may represent an adaptive response of dental tissue to varying functional demands (e.g. archaeologically documented dietary shift). The study of ETMP therefore offers a more nuanced method, in addition to morphology and macrowear analysis, to document biocultural processes of change over time in archaeological populations through dental tissues.

许多人类学研究已经检验了牙釉质厚度对人类牙冠的功能影响。尽管存在局限性，牙釉质厚度 (ET) 值仍用于推断人属的分类学属性，并确定针对大磨损的功能适应机制。然而，只有少数研究试图描述 ET 与恒下第一磨牙 (M1) 牙齿磨损模式之间的可能关系，_旨在观察是否可检测到对环境和文化背景的适应性反应。_{目前的工作旨在研究 M 1}中 ET 自适应响应的可能信号(wear stage 3; Molnar, 1971) 属于生活在克罗地亚新石器时代（公元前 6 世纪初）和青铜时代（公元前 2 千年后半期）之间的个体，以根据以下特征识别牙齿组织比例变化的任何信号考古学记录了人口结构和生存策略的变化。为了做到这一点，我们探索了整个牙冠的 3D 平均牙釉质厚度 (AET) 以及个人和跨时间组的磨损模式分布。然后，我们描述了一种称为“每个咀嚼阶段的牙釉质厚度”(ETMP) 的新方法，该方法涉及创建基于咀嚼阶段的三个部分切割牙釉质和冠状牙本质的虚拟切片，并相应地探索了 3D AET 的分布。最后，我们对牙冠进行了几何形态测量分析，以确定新石器时代、新石器时代和青铜时代组之间可能存在的形态差异。结果表明，青铜时代的个体与之前的人群不同，原因在于 1) 整个牙冠和特别是颊区的 ET 值较高，2) 颊侧局部广泛的磨损模式，以及 3) 远端延伸次锥体连同延伸的近远中冠形状。这些模式可能代表牙组织对不同功能需求的适应性反应（例如考古记录的饮食转变）。因此，除了形态学和宏观磨损分析之外，ETMP 研究还提供了一种更细致的方法，通过牙组织记录考古人群随时间变化的生物文化过程。