Sexual dimorphism in dental crown diameters. Study on sex assignment of subadult individuals in the graveyard of Franzhausen I, Lower Austria

Dental wear and oral pathology among sex determined Early Bronze-Age children from Franzhausen I, Lower Austria

The physical properties of diet and oral health throughout childhood play an important role in the development of human dentition, and differed greatly before the industrial revolution. In this study we examined dental wear and oral pathology in a sample of children from the Early Bronze-Age to investigate the physical and mechanical properties of childhood diet and related oral health. We explore cross-sectional age and sex-based variation of children in the sample. The analysis was carried out on the dentitions of 75 children, 978 teeth, excavated from the Early Bronze-Age cemetery Franzhausen I in Lower Austria. Presence of dental caries and calculus was recorded. Dental wear was measured using dentine exposure, occlusal topography, and dental microwear texture analysis. Sex determination was carried out using amelogenin peptide analysis. Caries were found in only 4 individuals (crude prevalence rate-5%, 95% CI 1% to 13%), affecting only 5 teeth (true prevalence rate-less than 1%). Dentine exposure was observed in over 70% of deciduous molars and dental wear measurements indicate a comparatively strong dental wear accumulation especially, among younger children, when compared to modern-day and later pre-industrial populations. Microwear textures presented a high complexity (Asfc > 2)/low anisotropy (epLsar < 1) profile, especially in older children. Differences between male and female children were not generally significant but increased dentine exposure was observed in the lower molars of younger female children. Our results suggest that the Early Bronze-Age children at Franzhausen I consumed a non-cariogenic diet, more abrasive and inclusive of harder/polyhedral foodstuffs than present-day children and some later Medieval children. Differences in dental wear accumulation were observed between children within the population, but with minimal variation between the sexes mostly occurring among younger children.

Two Gravettian human deciduous teeth from Grub/Kranawetberg, Lower Austria

In this paper we present two heavily eroded tooth fragments found in Grub/Kranawetberg, a Gravettian excavation site near Stillfried, Lower Austria. Both fragments were found during wet screening of sediment taken from an area near a hearth. Overall, the cultural layer yielded a large number of stone tools and flakes as well as bony points and over sixty bone beads and bone bead fragments. They point to an absolute date of 24,400 to 25,400 BP. We present a description of the tooth fragments and identify them as remains of an early modern human. One of the fragments is a deciduous right first lower molar (84) and the other a deciduous left lateral upper incisor (62). Due to their characteristic shape and size, as well as the degree of attrition, both teeth could have belonged to one single individual--a possibility consistent with their position in the stratigraphic column. The incisor could be compared for its metrical dimensions to the few other contemporaneous Upper Palaeolithic findings showing an insignificantly smaller dimension in mesio-distal and bucco-lingual dimensions. Although the remains are limited they increase our very small sample of deciduous teeth for this time period, which is essential for a better understanding of possible evolutionary trends from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic.