Anomaly or pathology: the Stafne defect as seen in archaeological material and modern clinical practice

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The high incidence of the Stafne defect found in Avar period from Hungary and Plains Archaic populations has prompted anthropological inquiry into the usefulness of this anomaly/pathology in the description of earlier human populations. However, in order to treat properly its occurrence within and between population samples, it was first necessary to determine if the defect was an anomaly or pathology. To this end, data were obtained from field sites, museum collections and material previously reported in the literature. A total sample of 5519 mandibles from archaeological sites produced 59 (1·069%) Stafne defects, while the clinical literature showed 126 cases from 22,301 minimum observations reported (0·565%). Analysis of the reported clinical cases, where surgical procedures and histological examination of the contents were performed, suggests that the Stafne defect is an anomaly rather than a pathology and that a descriptive differential diagnosis is easily made—this is true in both clinical and archaeological materials. Additionally, the relatively high incidence of the defect in some population samples (6·06% in Fehértó-A-Szeged, Avar period in Hungary) and its absence in many other population samples suggests the usefulness of this defect as a non-metric morphological trait in the analysis of biological distance between and among population samples.