Measurements of tooth wear among Australian Aborigines: I. Serial loss of the enamel crown

Abstract

The dental casts made from Aboriginal children during the course of a longitudinal growth study in Central Australia provided material for analyzing tooth wear under known environmental conditions. The wear facets produced on the occlusal surfaces were clearly preserved on the dental stone casts and recorded the progress of enamel attrition from ages 6 to 18. These casts were photographed and traced by electronic planimetric methods that automatically recorded the location and size of wear facets on the first and second permanent molars. These areas of worn tooth surface were compared to the total tooth surface. The worn surface was regressed on age to calculate wear rates of each tooth. Discriminant analyses were also performed to determine the significance of dental attrition differences between the sexes at each age group. The total wear on each tooth was highly correlated with age as expected but females wore their teeth at a significantly higher rate than males. The mandibular molars wore more rapidly than maxillary teeth in both sexes. The discriminant analysis successfully grouped 91% of the cases according to age and sex. Pattern of wear, the location, and size of wear facets also differed between age groups and sex. The questions of why there is a difference between male and female wear or why there is greater wear on one arch or arch region have no ready answers. The differing rates and pattern of dental wear do suggest that arch shape and growth rates may be the answer though it has yet to be tested. However, the occlusal surface wear is useful for age estimation in a population and provides a record of shifting masticatory forces during growth.

Yuendumu legacy of a longitudinal growth study in Central Australia

“…The St Louis group published several papers on these topics in the 1980s and 1990s (Molnar et al, 1983a(Molnar et al, , 1983bMolnar, 1988a, 1988b;Molnar, 1990, 1992).…”

Occlusal tooth wear in human sculls of antique period from Vendenis and Municipium Dardanorum DD, Kosovo

“…Systems for calculating the direction of the facet are developed [32,33]. The facets itself may be measured by taking pictures of the occlusal surfaces with a planimeter with a digital plate of a computerized system [34,35]. Occlusal attrition model and gradient usually are a small difference in tooth wear between left and right sides of the dentition.…”

Reconstrução de padrões paleopatológicos dentais em agricultores incipientes e desenvolvidos do litoral dos Andes Centrais

“…• Índice de desgaste dental (Molnar, 1971, Molnar et al, 1983Rodriguez, 2003) • Índice de desgaste dental interproximal (Hinton, 1982) • Ângulo da superfície de desgaste em molares (Smith, 1984) Registro de condições e patologias dentais…”

“…13a e 13b). Toda análise de desgaste foi realizada considerando a idade de óbito dos indivíduos, uma vez que há correlação positiva entre idade e quantidade de desgaste (Molnar et al, 1983;Buikstra & Ubelaker, 1994). O desgaste pode ser classificado segundo seu valor em categorias nominais para a reconstrução do padrão paleopatológico dental (Tabela 11).…”

“…Molnar, 1978, Molnar et al,1983Smith, 1984;Hinton, 1982); a) alguns exemplos de magnitude de desgaste por dente no maxilar; b)…”