Exploration of the internal structures of teeth is complex and has the potential to add greatly to existing information about the lifecourse of archaeological individuals, but has yet to realize its full interpretative value as an avenue of bioarchaeological inquiry. This thesis consists of three papers that focus on the potential for internal dental structures to provide important information on chronological age, and physiological alterations linked to vitamin D deficiency.
The first paper used SEM, microscopic imaging, and histological investigation of tooth dentin to determine the presence of mineralisation defects, observed as interglobular dentin (IGD) (spaces following incremental lines) in living (with known medical history) and archaeological individuals with clear healed rickets. This paper demonstrated that incremental bands of IGD are indicative of vitamin D deficiency.
The second paper expands identification of those with deficiency by quantifying morphological changes in pulp chambers of living and archaeological individuals. Pulp chambers were radiographed, evaluated histologically, and measured. Those with evidence of past vitamin D deficiency displayed constricted or chair shaped pulp horns. This radiographic technique provides a non-destructive tool to identify individuals that experienced childhood vitamin D deficiency.
The role vitamin D plays in the development of IGD over the lifecourse requires that accurate age estimates be conducted on older as well as younger adults. The third paper used a new version of pulp/tooth area ratios to provide an accurate estimation of age-at-death in older adults (50+). ImageJ software was used to calculate areas on sectioned teeth and results provided a mean absolute error (MAE) of ±3.9 years in older adults.
The results described in this thesis contribute to broader topics of discussion in anthropology, such as investigating health and metabolic disease in human populations, and adds to the ongoing discussion and evaluation of age-at-death techniques used to extend our ability to study the lifecourse of archaeological individuals. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Teeth record life events and the three papers in this thesis use dental structures to provide methodological foundations to evaluate the occurrence and severity of vitamin D deficiency in early life. The potential long-term consequences of such events are investigated through accurate recognition of older adults. Vitamin D regulates skeletal health by mediating calcium absorption and phosphorous homeostasis and deficiency is recognised as an important health concern. Accurate identification of older adults is also a widely recognised problem in skeletal studies. Age-at-death estimation in older individuals was calculated and the exploration of abnormal pulp chamber shape and mineralisation defects in tooth dentin was done to determine vitamin D status in both younger and older individuals. This research established that internal dental structures enables past episodes of vitamin D deficiency to be recognized in cases where skeletal indicators are not clear and permits increased precision in age-at-death estimations in the older individual.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/23442 |
| Date | 14 June 2018 |
| Creators | D'Ortenzio, Lori |
| Contributors | Brickley, Megan, Prowse, Tracy, Anthropology |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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