The Somalis' atypical dental traits were also noted by the anthropologist Loring Brace. He made the following observation in his Clines and Clusters Versus “Race:” A Test in Ancient Egypt and the Case of a Death on the Nile (1993) study:
"Most of our sub-Saharan African samples fall into the “megadont” category used by Flower to indicate relative tooth size (Brace and Hunt, 1990; Brace et al., 1991; Flower, 1885), but the Somalis from the Horn of East Africa sit right on the dividing line between “mesodont” and “microdont.” Evidently the ancestors of the Somalis had long been associated with food preparation practices that reduced the selective force intensity maintaining tooth size. This is consistent with the possibility that the Ethiopian highlands were the locale of one of the ancient and semi-independent centers of plant domestication (Harlan, 1969, 1971; Harlan et al., 1976; Stemler, 1980; Vavilov, 1951)."This has been noted since at least the late 19th century:
