This guide to scoring crown and root traits in human dentitions substantially builds on a seminal 1991 work by Turner, Nichol, and Scott. It provides detailed descriptions and multiple illustrations of each crown and root trait to help guide researchers to make consistent observations on trait expression, greatly reducing observer error. Human Tooth Crown and Root Morphology also reflects exciting new developments driven by technology that have significant ramifications for dental anthropology, particularly the recent development of a web-based application that computes the probability that an individual belongs to a particular genogeographic grouping based on combinations of crown and root traits; as such, the utility of these variables is expanded to forensic anthropology. Human Tooth Crown and Root Morphology is ideal for researchers and graduate students in the fields of dental, physical, and forensic anthropology and will serve as a methodological guide for many years to come.
Acknowledgments
Part I. Introduction, Background and Terminology: Introduction
Why a guidebook?
Terminology
Part II. Crown and Root Trait Descriptions:
1. Winging
2. Labial convexity
3. Palatine torus
4. Shoveling
5. Double shoveling
6. Interruption grooves
7. Tuberculum dentale
8. Bushman canine
9. Canine distal accessory ridge
10. Upper premolar accessory ridges
11. Upper premolar mesial and distal accessory cusps
12. Uto-Aztecan premolar
13. Metacone
14. Hypocone
15. Bifurcated hypocone
16. Cusp 5
17. Marginal ridge tubercles
18. Carabelli's trait
19. Parastyle
20. Enamel extensions
21. Upper premolar root number
22. Upper second molar root number
23. Lateral incisor variants
24. Pegged-reduced-missing third molars
25. Premolar odontomes
26. Midline diastema
27. Lower premolar cusp number
28. Anterior fovea
29. Mandibular torus
30. Lower molar groove pattern
31. Rocker jaw
32. Lower molar cusp number
33. Deflecting wrinkle
34. Distal trigonid and mid-trigonid crests
35. Protostylid
36. Cusp 6
37. Cusp 7
38. Lower first premolar root number (Tomes' root)
39. Lower canine root number
40. Three-rooted lower molars
41. Lower molar root number
42. Torsomolar angle
Part III. Conclusions: General considerations
Introduction
Basic concerns
Final cautionary notes
Appendix (full class frequency distributions for 29 key traits in 60 world samples)
A.1 Key to tables
A.2 Sample provenance
A.3 Samples by geographic area
G. Richard Scott is Foundation Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Reno. He focusses on Southwest Indians, Alaskan Eskimos, Norse in the North Atlantic, and Spanish Basques. He is a past president of the Dental Anthropology Association.
Joel D. Irish is a Professor of Biological Anthropology at Liverpool John Moores University. He has traversed the length and breadth of Africa studying teeth from Plio-Pleistocene hominins and recent Arabs in the north to Zulu in the south. He is a past president of the Dental Anthropology Association.