engleski

Dental caries and ante-mortem tooth loss in an early medieval population from western Ireland

Study of alveo-dental pathologies such as caries and ante-mortem tooth loss may reveal previously unknown details about the diet and general health of past populations and as such provide an extremely useful insight into the lifestyles of our ancestors, especially in cases when written historic sources are scarce. This study presents the results of analysis of dental caries and ante-mortem tooth loss (AMTL) in the early medieval skeletal sample (7th-10th c. AD) from Omey Island, co. Galway in western Ireland. The total analysed sample includes 77 adult individuals (over 15 years of age): 37 males and 40 females. The total caries frequency per tooth is 4.5% (55/1218) with a somewhat higher prevalence in males than in females (5.1% vs. 3.9%). Caries is more frequent in maxillary teeth compared to mandibular (5.5% vs. 3.2%). Regarding the position, over two thirds (67.2%) of the recorded carious lesions are located on the interproximal tooth surfaces. ATML is recorded in 14.3% of the analysed alveoli (260/1814) with a somewhat higher frequency in males (16.4% vs. 11.6%). AMTL is, similar to caries, more frequent in the maxilla compared to the mandible (16.4% vs. 11.6%). In order to gain a better insight into the diet of the analysed population the results obtained by this analysis are compared with several studies conducted on early medieval skeletal samples from Ireland and Europe, but also with the Irish medieval written sources testifying about the nutritional habits of early medieval inhabitants of this region.

Caries; ante-mortem tooth loss; early medieval period; Ireland

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