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8 - Subsistence change and dental health in the people of Non Nok Tha, northeast Thailand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2009

By
Michele Toomay Douglas
Edited by
Marc Oxenham  and
Nancy Tayles
Michele Toomay Douglas
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii at Manoa Hawaii USA
Marc Oxenham
Affiliation:
Australian National University, Canberra
Nancy Tayles
Affiliation:
University of Otago, New Zealand
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Summary

Introduction

Dentition is an information-rich mainstay of research in skeletal biology, forensic science and bioarchaeology, contributing information on sex, age at death, growth and development, and diet, among others. The steadily accumulating global database of dental pathological conditions has enabled comparative research across space, time, technology and subsistence base (e.g. summary in Larsen (1997) and Pechenkina et al. (2000)). Lukacs (1989) proposed standardisation of recording and reporting dental pathological conditions and the use of a dental pathology profile (DPP) for comparative research.

The DPP was conceived to improve the comparison of dental assemblages and to suggest modes of subsistence in situations where archaeological evidence was lacking (Lukacs 1989, p. 273). Among the variables in the DPP are caries, enamel hypoplasia, calculus, alveolar resorption, severe attrition, antemortem tooth loss, periapical cavities (indicative of tooth infection) and variables of jaw robusticity and size. The transitions from hunting and gathering to agriculture and then to intensified agriculture resulted in shifts in the components of the DPP that can be chronicled and compared (Lukacs 1989, p. 276). For example, hunter–gatherers typically have low frequencies of caries, calculus, malocclusion and alveolar resorption, a high frequency of severe attrition, and large jaw size. Agricultural populations typically have the opposite profile, low rates of severe attrition (except in cases where food contains abrasives) and high rates of caries, calculus, resorption, dental crowding and malocclusion.

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Chapter
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Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia , pp. 191 - 219
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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