Quantifying prehistoric physiological stress using the TCA method:

Abstract

The Neolithic way of life was accompanied by an increase in various forms of physiological stress (e.g. disease, malnutrition). Here we use the method of tooth cementum annulation (TCA) analysis in order to detect physiological stress that is probably related to calcium metabolism. The TCA method is applied to a sample of teeth from three Mesolithic and five Neolithic individuals from the Central Balkans. The average number of physiological stress episodes is higher in the Neolithic group – but the statistical significance of this result cannot be evaluated due to the small sample size, therefore these results should be taken as preliminary.

Using Histological Staining Techniques to Improve Visualization and Interpretability of Tooth Cementum Annulation Analysis

“…Calculation of the final age is done by adding the age of the root formation to the mean number of counted cementum layers, since forming of cementum begins after the root development. Different studies report different protocols and errors for the described method for age determination (Gauthier & Schutkowski, 2013;Bertrand et al, 2019;Penezic´ et al, 2019) so there is a need for the standardization of the procedure, that can be used within the anthropological, archeological, forensic and histological context.…”