Frequency and variability of five non metric dental crown traits in the permanent maxillary dentitions of a racially mixed population from Bengaluru, Karnataka

Abstract

Forensic CornerIntroduction: Evaluation of Tooth Crown non metric traits benefits to assess the biological distance between populations. It is well known that these traits are characterised by a high inter-population differentiation, low sexual dimorphism, and their recording is loaded by relatively small intra and inter observer error. The dental morphological traits are successfully used in the description and explanation of the microevolutionary and ethnogenetic processes. This paper presents the results of the permanent maxillary dentition tooth crown traits differentiation of human populations from Bengaluru. Materials and Methods: The comparative analysis was carried out on the basis of 4 groups for 5 Tooth Crown non metric traits in maxillary permanent dentition using Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System for morphological scoring system of each trait and each score was charted on Osteoware Dental Morphology software. Results: Study analysed 400 dental casts from 4 different ethnic groups. Traits Winging, shovelling, lingual tubercle showed highest expression in Iranians while Cusp of Carabelli's trait expression showed 87% of prevalence in the surveyed group but the Hypocone trait showed the highest expression in Muslims. Conclusion:Traits of the human dentition can be a valuable diagnostic tool for anthropological studies in classifying and characterizing different ethnic groups. According to the results obtained from this study, it can be said that the groups Hindus, Muslims and Christians (Indians) belong to Sundonts, while Iranians fall under sinodonts population group.

Study of twenty non-metric dental crown traits using ASUDAS system in NCR (India) population

“…"Indodont" a.k.a. South Asian dental pattern has been followed by Sri Lankan aboriginal Vedda population with the exception that SH-UI1 which was not seen in the Vedda (Peiris et al 2011) Although it is well known that most of NDCTs which are part of ASUDAS have low or no sexual dimorphism (Scott et al 2018b;Venkatesh et al 2019). Contradicting to this, a Brazilian study has found frequencies of CC, 3-cusp UM2, and C6 to be sexually dimorphic (Tinoco et al 2016).…”

“…Various researchers globally have ethnographically classified human populations based on dental morphology (Díaz et al 2014;Venkatesh et al 2019). Tsunehiko Hanihara defined the "Mongoloid dental complex" (Hanihara 1992), which was later divided into the Sinodont (Northeast Asian populations) and Sundadont (Southeast Asian populations) dental complexes by Turner (1984).…”

“…Tsunehiko Hanihara defined the "Mongoloid dental complex" (Hanihara 1992), which was later divided into the Sinodont (Northeast Asian populations) and Sundadont (Southeast Asian populations) dental complexes by Turner (1984). It was suggested that Caucasoid dental complex also exists which is formed by several groups including the one from Western Eurasia (Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and India) (Venkatesh et al 2019). Various studies on NDCT have been conducted internationally (Díaz et al 2014;Hanihara 2008;Peiris et al 2011;Tinoco et al 2016) for determining population affinities and placing the study population in a particular dental complex.…”

“…The NCDT frequencies collected in the present study can be compared with a limited number of ASU-DAS-based studies. ASUDAS-based studies have been conducted on few Indian geo-population parts including the region of Ajnala (Amritsar) (Acharya and Sehrawat 2021), Bengaluru (Smitha et al 2018;Venkatesh et al 2019), Odisha (Nair et al 2020) and Kerala (Baby and Sunil 2019;Baby et al 2017;Nair et al 2020). After careful appraisal of literature, we compiled a comparative analysis table of various ASUDAS-based Indian studies (Table 6).…”

Variability and Patterning in Permanent Tooth Dimensions among Four Ethnic Groups from the North-eastern States of India

“…Even though the dental morphological features of the three major races have merged, some traits are dominant in some ethnic groups [ 29 ]. Due to the wide range of morphological traits and their forms, human dental traits are helpful diagnostic tools for anthropological studies to identify and describe different ethnic groups [ 30 ]. The results of the present study helped establish the idea of regional or ethnic variation in dental morphometry by demonstrating variations in tooth dimensions among four ethnic groups from North-eastern India compared with the standard values.…”