Correlations Among New Dental and Cranial Measurements

Abstract

Cranial and dental anthropometry is commonly used in many areas of research, e.g., in forensicanthropology and paleoanthropology. We propose new craniometric and dental landmarks and distancesthat may have important applications in physical anthropology. Furthermore, a classical anthropometricalapproach was applied to quantify the correlation between dental and cranial measurements,which were taken on 30 Middle Ages adult crania from Sardinia (Italy).Principal components analysis was performed to explore the correlations among inter-landmark distances.The first component showed correlations between the cranial base and maxillary inter-landmarkdistances (the ‘cranial base’ system). The second component exclusively demonstrated correlationsamong maxillary and dental inter-landmark distances (the ‘oral cavity’ system). The third componentshowed positive correlations between the zygomatic and midline maxillary inter-landmark distances,and high negative loadings that include the bilateral styloid process and midline maxillary landmarks(the ‘upper cranium’ system).The inter-landmark dental distances correlate with inter-landmark cranial distances that have notbeen described previously. These data can be applied in other research and clinical areas.