Abstract
Previous bioarchaeological analysis of postmortem tooth loss (PMTL) has failed to recognize the potential influence of diseased dental tissue on tooth retention after death. Because tooth loss from a traditional taphonomy prospective is treated simply as missing data, demographic studies are potentially influenced by underestimations of disease prevalence. To investigate the association of tooth loss and dental disease, tissue health data was collected on a sample of teeth from 771 individuals. By analyzing the health of the bone and dental tissues immediately surrounding empty alveolar sockets suggestive of PMTL, trends in the presence of diseased tissue and retention of a tooth emerged. When compared to teeth retained after death, PMTL sockets were 15.3% less likely to retain neighboring teeth and 21.5% less likely to have neighboring teeth that showed no signs of carious lesions or abscesses. The results suggest that the traditional explanation of susceptibility to damage because of the exposure and morphology of single-rooted, anterior teeth does not sufficiently explain the causes of PMTL. Rather, it would be more accurate to consider PMTL as an advanced symptom of dental disease when interpreting missing teeth in the bioarchaeological record.
Highlights
Teeth are valuable indicators of disman teeth typically can survive a wide range of ease and life history, as well as a source of demoenvironments, making them a rich source of infor- graphic and cultural data, several studies highlight mation for bioarchaeologists gathering data on hu- the prevalence of sample bias arising from anteman behavior
The nal environment, examination of oral disease in the study of dental pathology is further complicated dentition enhances our understanding of the differ- by the varying preservation rates of the multiple ences in foodways between and within cultures
Dental disease is sometimes used as a proxy for understanding oral health, but the inconsistency in defining the term health has led researchers to
Summary
2022 │ Volume 35│ Issue 01 tissues that make up the dentition. Teeth are en- unassociated (Evis et al, 2016, Tuller and Ðurić, closed in some of the most fragile bone, the alveo- 2006). Potential underestimation of dental caries rates has The dentition of 771 individuals was inventoried been acknowledged in calculations of disease prev- and each tooth or empty tooth socket was assessed alence in samples with high rates of missing teeth for wear and pathological conditions. All other of studying rates of dental caries, but only a few cases were excluded Neighboring tissues in this researchers have attempted to correct for this loss context were represented by an examination of the in data Mortem or postmortem is often an indication of the The pooled data set consisted of 771 adult indisubtle changes in the surrounding tissues, and con- viduals from Late Holocene (5000-200 BP) archaeosequently the disease of the overall oral cavity, ra- logical sites in pre-contact California, which was ther than solely an unfortunate consequence of created using the dental inventories and pathology taphonomic processes.
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