Some Achievements and Challenges of Dental Anthropology

Abstract

Dental Anthropology is a scientific discipline of great development in the last decades, which deals with studies of sexual dimorphism, paleodemography, oral health, lifestyle, evolutionary trends, paleodiet, biodistance and paleopathology through the analysis of the dentition of extinct and modernhuman populations[1-22,among many others]. It is an important way of investigationthat allows access to knowledge sometimes avoided by other kind of research. The microscopic structure of osseous remains is more fragile than that of teeth, and therefore tend to be more easily deteriorated, so that the latter usually form an important part of the evidence available because of the much tougher constitution of the tissues, both in archaeological cases and in the unfortunately increasing number of mass disasters, like aircraft accidents, natural catastrophes or terrorist attacks[e.g. 23-27]. Considering that tooth structure is not remodeled during life, they offer a large amount of information for understanding the biological and social dynamics of past populations [3,14,28,29] and assist in the identification of missing persons through forensic anthropology procedures [30][31][32]. Modern Dental Anthropology is the result of systematic efforts carried out by research teams for decadesin order to strengthen the scientific nature of the discipline and tried to explain the enormous biological diversity of human populations.The vast amount of information generated byscholars such as A.Hrdlička, A. Dahlberg, S. Garn, R. Potter, G. Townsend, E.Harris, J. Irish, K. and T.Hanihara, J. Kieser, A. Goodman, K. Alt, S.Hillson,H. Liversidge, C. Turner, P. Walker, Y. Mizoguchi, G. Gustafson, L. Richards, H. Smith,R. Corruccini, R. Cameriere and their investigation teams are good examples of comprehensive and sustainedprograms that included specific and holistic investigation designs. These detailed and numerous studies were initiated during the first half of the twentieth century, and significantly diversified since the 1970s. The prolific development generated a huge amount of data about dentition, which contributed to improving knowledge about the issues mentioned above; its impact is seen in the growing interest on the subject andthe increasing incorporation of specialists in archeological and bio anthropological research groups all around the world. At present, dental anthropology is immersed in a complex scenario that requires that the multiple current analysesin force, most of which offer significant heuristic potential for improving the anthropological science, be reflexively evaluated so as to arrive tomethodological consensus that allow performing macroscale comparative studies.The definitions of the variablesstudied,their categorizations and the recording proceduresare issues that should be clearly stated and necessarily discussed within the academic community in order to reach general consensus among scholars, so as to produce comparable data and allow developing studies in large spatial and temporal scales [33]. In this way...

Primeros resultados para la puesta en valor patrimonial del “Cementerio Sud” (San Andrés de Giles, provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina)

“…Adams & Byrd, 2008;Albanese, Cardoso & Saunders, 2005;D´Anastasio et al, 2014;Gonçalves, Thompson & Cunha 2013;Hassett, 2011;Klales & Burns, 2017;Luna 2010Luna , 2019. Se destaca asimismo la recuperación de un alto porcentaje de dientes, los cuales tienen un potencial muy importante de análisis desde la perspectiva de la antropología dental para abordar múltiples líneas de estudio, como por ejemplo estados de salud, distancias biológicas, dimorfismo sexual, etc., a través de estudios macroscópicos, radiográficos y tomográficos (Hilson, 1996;Irish & Nelson, 2008;Kieser, 2008;Lukacs, 1998;Luna, 2016;Scott & Turner, 2000). En una próxima etapa, se realizarán excavaciones en sectores especialmente vulnerables del cementerio ya que la preservación y resguardo de los restos humanos que puedan ser potencialmente dañados es una responsabilidad ética primordial de todo especialista abocado a su estudio (Aranda et al, 2014).…”

Important to Forensic Medicine Statistical Trends in Hospital Admissions of Patents Bitten and Struck by Dogs (W54 ICD-10) in the Lower Silesia Region of Poland in the Years 2006-2012

“…Forensic dentistry is using methods that were developed first by dental anthropologists to document the diversity of human population [11] and it is successfully applied in forensic human identification, including the most complicated cases of exhumed remains [12]. Teeth of all mammals are hard and stable structures and their sizes and shapes, as well as positions they assume in the dental arch, form combinations that are practically unique for the given single animal or person [13].…”

Relaciones biológicas en grupos cazadores-recolectores de la transición Pampeano-Patagónica oriental (Argentina) durante el Holoceno tardío. Aportes desde la métrica dental

“…La importancia de la antropología dental y los análisis métricos en bioarqueología y antropología forense se ha incrementado notablemente en las últimas décadas (Mayhall, 1992(Mayhall, , 2000Hillson, 1996;Pietrusewsky, 2000;Latham y Finnegan, 2010;Black y Ferguson, 2011;Luna, 2016), en especial en el campo vinculado a estudios de biodistancia (Buikstra et al, 1990;Lukacs, 1998;Kieser, 2008). Esto se debe a que la dentición ofrece un gran potencial para evaluar procesos migratorios y evolutivos, inte- racciones biológicas y dinámicas poblacionales (Scott y Turner, 1988Pinhasi et al, 2008;Matsumura y Oxenham, 2014;Bollini et al, 2016).…”