The usefulness of caries frequency, depth, and location in determining cariogenicity and past subsistence: A test on early and later agriculturalists from the Peruvian coast

Abstract

Dental markers have been used to unravel particularities of paleodiet, subsistence, social structure, and health. This article aims to compare oral pathology among four pre-Columbian groups with different degrees of agricultural and socio-cultural development but comparable ecological conditions who lived on the coastal desert of Peru. Three of these groups are assigned to distinct phases of the Formative Period (2500-1 BC), a time critical for our understanding of the development of agriculture and social complexity. The fourth group corresponds to the Late Intermediate Period (1000-1470 AD), when agriculture had its apogee and society was highly stratified. In this study we test whether there is an increase (1) in the frequency of carious lesions and (2) in caries depth, and (3) if there is a shift from occlusal to extra-occlusal caries locations with the development of agriculture. Therefore, we analyze the frequencies of carious lesions and antemortem tooth loss (AMTL), the caries distributions by age, sex, and type of tooth, as well as the tissues affected by, and the location of the carious lesions. Since there are no significant differences in the frequencies of carious lesions and AMTL between the groups, we reject hypothesis 1. In contrast, caries depth does increase, and caries location changes from occlusal to extra-occlusal sites with agricultural development. However, we can only corroborate hypothesis 2 and 3 when taking into consideration dental wear. Thus, we recommend that caries depth and locations should be used with evaluations of dental wear to reconstruct subsistence in ancient populations.

Caries Through Time: An Anthropological Overview

“…The same happens in some populations from South American Andes where the carious lesions (mainly cervical ones) are much more frequent in males that preserve the ancestral habit of coca leaf chewing (Pando, 1988). This pattern has also been observed in archaeological samples (Indriati & Buikstra, 2001;Langsjöen, 1996;Pezo & Eggers, 2010;Valdivia, 1980). In Andean and Amazonian populations, it was observed higher prevalence in women who are responsible for chewing maize and manioc as a part of preparing fermentable beverages (chicha, masato, kiki -Larsen, 1997;Pezo & Eggers, 2010).…”

“…In Neolithic populations the change to better processed diets gradually leads to a low wear of masticatory surfaces that is another factor why the occlusal caries could have developed earlier. This competitive relation between dental wear 16 and caries has been also observed in fishermen from the South American Pacific coast, Dutch sailors from 18 th -19 th centuries and in other populations with marine subsistence (Milner, 1984;Maat & Van der Velde, 1987;Pezo & Eggers, 2010). Finally, dental wear is a factor that can distort the real perception of caries experience in several populations with abrasive diet.…”

“…The transition from the hunting-gathering economy to self-sufficient food production changed radically the human history, promoting a high population growth for food availability, sedentary settlements, new labor division, and changes in the rights of land property that led to a more complex society, with specialists, social classes and centralized government systems. 7 For his comparisons, Caselitz used a reduced variant of the DMF Index (Decayed Missing Filling Index) applied to archaeological samples, the I-CE (Index of carie-extractio) or DMI (Decay Missing Index - Lukacs, 1996;Pezo & Eggers, 2010;Saunders et al, 1997), calculated as the number of carious teeth added to the number of antemortem toot loss (AMTL) divided by the sum of teeth and sockets observed.…”

“…11 These lesions have been attributed to physiological compensatory super-eruption of roots subsequent to severe occlusal wear produced by abrasive diets (Eclassan et al, 2009). However, the possible origin related to sweet beverages must be considered (Pezo, 2010;Pezo & Eggers, 2010).…”

Using dental and activity indicators in order to explore possible sex differences in an adult rural medieval population from Thebes (Greece)

“…Dental caries epidemiology is one of the most important ways in which the diet of past populations can be assessed (Hillson 2001), and in addition the most common pathology found in ancient human remains (Lanfranco and Eggers 2010). Caries is defined as a disease process characterized by the focal demineralization of dental hard tissues by organic acids produced by bacterial fermentation of dietary carbohydrates (Larsen et al 1991).…”