Peter S. Ungar (born May 4, 1963) is an American

paleoanthropologist Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and biological anthropology, anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as wikt:hominization, hominization, throug ...

and

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biol ...

Life

Peter S. Ungar is Distinguished Professor and Director of the Environmental Dynamics Program at the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. It is the Flagship campus, flagship campus of the University of Arkan ...

. Before arriving at Arkansas, he taught at the

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Established in 1893 following the construction of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, th ...

and the

Duke University Medical Center Duke University Hospital is a 1062 -bed acute care facility and an academic tertiary care facility located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Established in 1930, it is the flagship teaching hospital for the Duke University Health Sy ...

. Ungar is known primarily for his work on the role of diet in

human evolution ''Homo sapiens'' is a distinct species of the hominid family of primates, which also includes all the great apes. Over their evolutionary history, humans gradually developed traits such as Human skeletal changes due to bipedalism, bipedalism, de ...

. He has spent thousands of hours observing wild apes and other primates in the rainforests of Latin America and Southeast Asia, studied fossils from

tyrannosaurid Tyrannosauridae (or tyrannosaurids, meaning "tyrant lizards") is a family of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs that comprises two subfamilies containing up to fifteen genera, including the eponymous ''Tyrannosaurus''. The exact number of genera ...

s to

Neandertals Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle to Late Pleistocene. Neanderthal extinction ...

, documented oral health of the Hadza Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania, and developed new techniques for using advanced surface analysis technologies to tease information about diet from tooth shape and patterns of use wear. Ungar has written or coauthored more than 230 scientific works on

ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

and

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

for books and journals including ''Nature'', '' Science'', ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'', and ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society''. These have focused on food choices and feeding in living primates, and the role of diet in the evolution of human ancestors and other fossil species. His book ''Mammal Teeth: Origin, Evolution and Diversity'' won the PROSE Award for best book in the Biological Sciences, and he edited ''Evolution of the Human Diet: The Known, the Unknown and the Unknowable'' and coedited ''Human Diet: Its Origins and Evolution''. His forays into popular science writing include ''Teeth: A Very Short Introduction'', and his most recent trade book, ''Evolution's Bite: A Story about Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins''. Ungar's work has been featured in hundreds of electronic, print, and broadcast media outlets, and he appeared recently in documentaries on the ''Discovery Channel'', ''BBC Television'', and the ''Science Channel''.

Selected publications

* * * * Peter S. Ungar, "The Trouble with Teeth: Our teeth are crowded, crooked and riddled with cavities. It hasn't always been this way", ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'', vol. 322, no. 4 (April 2020), pp. 44–49. "Our teeth ..evolved over hundreds of millions of years to be incredibly strong and to align precisely for efficient chewing. ..Our dental disorders largely stem from a shift in the oral environment caused by the introduction of softer, more sugary foods than the ones our ancestors typically ate." * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Books

* Ungar, P.S. Evolution's Bite: A Story of Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins. 2017. * Ungar, P.S. Teeth: A Very Short Introduction. 2014. * Ungar, P.S. Mammal Teeth: Origin, Evolution, and Diversity. 2010.

References

External links

Tedx, The ancestral human dietTedEd Lesson, How did teeth evolve?Scientific American blog, The true human dietAeon blog, It’s not that your teeth are too bigDepartment of Anthropology, University of ArkansasEnvironmental Dynamics Program, University of ArkansasDiet reconstruction of the "Nutcracker Man"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ungar, Peter American paleoanthropologists Living people 1963 births Binghamton University alumni