Blue Bridge Lane
&
Fishergate House
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Dental wear is usually much more severe in skeletons from archaeological excavations than in modern populations. This can be attributed to coarse diet, as well as contemporary corn processing techniques, which resulted in the inclusion of abrasive particles in food stuffs, such as bread (Pindborg 1970, 294). The type of wear produced by food or other foreign particles is termed abrasion and is the most common type of wear affecting teeth (Robb et al 1991, 595). In some populations, this wear may also result from occupational activities, such as skin preparation or fishing net mending, or cultural habits, such as pipe smoking. Attrition is a type of wear caused by tooth-to-tooth contact during chewing or as a result of conditions such as bruxism, defined as subconscious grinding or tapping of the teeth (Hillson 1996, 242). It is not always possible to distinguish between the two different types or wear, as their final appearance may be identical.
Dental wear is mostly seen on the chewing (occlusal) surfaces of the teeth, although in some cases, especially in individuals with an overbite, wear can also be noted on the front and back (buccal and lingual) surfaces.
The severity of dental wear was graded for each tooth using a system developed by Smith (1984), ranging from one (no wear) to eight (severe wear with almost complete loss of the tooth crown). As expected, wear increased with age, with no wear on recently erupted deciduous teeth in infants or permanent teeth in juveniles. With the increasing age and exposure of the tooth, the wear worsened, so that mature adults exhibited the most severe abrasion. However, dental wear varied considerably between individuals, as well as between individual teeth. If a tooth was lost ante-mortem, wear of the corresponding tooth in the opposing jaw would have been minimal, depending upon the age at which the tooth was lost and the remaining life span of the individual following tooth loss. Alternatively, some individuals showed more severe wear on the anterior teeth, while others had more severe wear on the molars. Interestingly, females exhibited considerably less severe wear than males. If wear was activity-related, then it would be expected that males would also have considerably more dental trauma than females, which was not the case. As few osteologists quantify tooth wear, it was not possible to compare this trend with those from other populations.
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