An attempt has been made to display a picture of carious pathology and other dental diseases based on the study of the general status and reconstruction of cultural and everyday traditions of the early Iron Age society of Poltava and adjacent regions of Ukraine for introduction into the scientific base with the interaction of the formula: disease - social conditions, for a particular territory, specific society, one historical time. The materials of the study were the skeletons of 223 individuals with preserved dental-maxillary area (discovered and collected during the archaeological excavations of mounds 1998–2017 by expeditions of the Center for the Preservation and Research of Monuments of Archeology of the Department of Culture of the Poltava Regional State Administration) of the early Iron Age (mid-5th-6th centuries). BC, hereinafter - RHW) of the territory of Poltava and adjacent areas: 40 skeletons of children, 79 - women, 104 - men. In the analysis of pathology, we used our own method of studying the bones of ancient people and studying the pathology on anthropological material. Studied age-related changes in the skeleton, social labeling (if possible, determined the type of occupation, special social characteristics - decoration of the teeth, effects on the teeth when initiating into adult life, technical use of the masticatory organs, etc.). The social portrait of society shows the clinical picture of caries, other deviations from the generally accepted norm, which can be used as a starting point when comparing caries indicators to earlier or later communities with their social characteristics and economic structure. So, a pathology change curve can be created, with the creation of an intermediate picture of the disease and prediction at any time in the future. Having such a formula of pathological processes in a given population in a given territory at a given time with a given social characteristic, we can further obtain information on the pathology of close and distant communities, which will provide new methods for dating and recreating life. For medicine, it is important to trace causal relationships. It is, therefore, possible to derive diagrams of diseases at the level of similar conditions of life and management (expect a similar status of the oral cavity in similar societies).

The condition of teeth in ancient populations living on the territory of Ukraine has been little studied. The aim of the work is to study the dental status of the 15th century Nogais, and to carry out a comparative analysis of the data obtained with the state of the dento-jaw system of medieval populations that lived on the territory of modern Ukraine in the 9th – early 15th centuries. The object of the study was 48 Nogai skeletons (main group) and 118 representatives of medieval cultures (control group). The research method was a method for analyzing the skeletal tissue of ancient people, developed by the authors. The prevalence and intensity of caries, the prevalence of dento-jaw anomalies, dental calculus and periodontal diseases were studied. Statistical analysis was performed using the Pearson χ2 test. It was found that the prevalence of dental caries in the main group is lower than in the control group (18.75 % and 37.28 % respectively, p<0.05). It was also found that this indicator significantly differed in men of both groups (p<0.05), while in women it did not differ (p>0.1). It was found that in the main group, compared with the control group, the frequency of primary adentia was higher (16.67 % and 6.68 % respectively, p<0.05), but the prevalence of anomalies in the position of individual teeth and occlusion was lower (4.17 % and 21.18 % respectively, p<0.05,). It was found that the prevalence of dental calculus in the main group is two times higher than in the control group (89.50 % and 41.0 % respectively, p<0.0001). Also, 15.0 % of Nogai men showed a decrease in the height of the alveolar process of the jaws, which is characteristic of periodontitis; in women, such changes were not found due to the low average age of survival. Thus, the 15th century Nogai population had a lower prevalence of caries and dento-maxillary anomalies than the medieval populations that lived on the territory of modern Ukraine in the 9th – early 15th centuries.