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Buccal dental microwear analysis was carried out on a sample of 46 individuals from the Prague-Zličín site, Czech Republic. The Prague-Zličín burial ground is dated to the Migration Period, 5th century AD. For each individual, molars or premolars were analyzed in secondary electrons of scanning electron microscope. The length, orientation and number of all observed striations were quantified using SigmaScan Pro 5.0, image analysis software. Subsequently, results obtained were compared with published datasets acquired from studies of various modern hunter-gatherers, pastoral, and agricultural populations with different dietary habits (Lalueza et al. 1996). The analysis yielded a similar microwear pattern within the Prague-Zličín population. The density and the length of microstriations showed no inter-group variability according to sex and age in adults; only an age-related variability, which might have resulted from different ratios of meat and vegetable intake, was observed between adults and subadults. The abrasiveness of food consumed in the Migration period was significantly higher than the other comparative Neolithic and Medieval samples in terms of striation density (NT) and length (XT). The observed amounts of abrasive particles in the diet might have originated from highly-abrasive food and/or food preparation technology. Migration period individuals were found to have a significantly higher number of vertical microwear features (NV), which were also found to be longer (XV) than other examined individuals from different periods. A possible high meat intake might be inferred in the Prague-Zličín population using NH/NT and NV/NT ratios. When comparing social status with dietary habits, a softer diet was found in individuals with higher social status. IANSA 2016 ● VII/1 ● 55–70 Ivana Jarošová, Jiří Vávra, Jaroslav Jiřík, Marcela Horáková: Buccal Dental Microwear of a Barbarian Population from Prague-Zličín – a Study of the Migration Period in the Czech Republic 56 habits due to the long-term “turnover” effect in comparison to occlusal microwear pattern (Pérez-Pérez et al. 1994). Moreover, recent research of the observed long-term stability of buccal microwear patterns has shown them to be a reliable indicator of overall dietary habits (Romero et al. 2012). 2. Material and methods 2.1 Prague-Zličín burial ground The archaeological site is located at the western edge of Prague (Czech Republic) and a complete skeletal burial ground was excavated here between 2005 and 2008. It is dated to the Migration Period, to the greater part of the 5th century AD, and the skeletons buried there belong to the so-called Vinařice Group (for more details, see Vávra et al. 2008; Vávra et al. 2012; Jiřík et al. 2015). From a historical point of view, this studied population inhabited an area just outside the Roman Empire: its members were considered as Barbarians inhabiting and migrating behind and along the fortified borders (Limes Romanus) of the Roman Empire. The analyzed skeletal sample consisted of 176 burials in 173 graves with the remains of 180 individuals. The state of bone preservation was very low (due to the geochemical and hydrological conditions, and the re-opening activities of looters), thus only 113 individuals were available for anthropological evaluation, including 19 subadults (0–14 years), and 94 adult individuals over 15 years (“adult” in terms of social status, not biological status) that consisted of 26 males, 33 females and 35 adult individuals of unknown sex (Víšková et al. 2012; Horáková et al. 2014; Horáková, Jarošová 2015). A preliminary analysis of buccal dental microwear from the Prague-Zličín population was undertaken on a random sample of 23 adult individuals (15+ yrs) and indicated a meat-based diet with large amounts of abrasive particles (NT=94.3) in their food; no statistically-significant sexand age(within the sample of studied age categories: 15–19 yrs; 20–35 yrs; 35–50 yrs; 50+ yrs) related differences were found within the PragueZličín population (Horáková et al. 2014). In the current analysis, all 89 individuals from this burial ground with posterior teeth (i.e. premolars and molars) present were intended to be included in the dental microwear analysis, but due to postmortem enamel defects on a microscopic (e.g. grave 62, 64, 103, 172a, 174) or macroscopic level, only 46 individuals (51.7%) were included and the other 43 individuals (48.3%) had to be excluded. The microscopic damage found at the enamel surface can be attributed to post-mortem taphonomic processes, which affect the enamel surfaces and make it impossible to perform a dietary reconstruction (Martínez, Pérez-Pérez 2004). The damage patterns observed within the Prague-Zličín sample at the microscopic level (using SEM) included eroded surfaces with an irregular aspect, in some cases with a high density of parallel striations, or patches of slightly-damaged enamel, or an eroded enamel surface exhibiting incremental growth lines, known as perikymata. All the observed types of damage present at the microscopic level were known examples and had already been described in detail elsewhere (see Martínez, Pérez-Pérez 2004). Thus, for the buccal microwear analysis, 7 subadult (0–14 yrs) and 39 adult (over 15 yrs) individuals with well-preserved buccal surfaces were eventually deemed suitable, and these constitute the final data collection for this population (Table 1). Data on each individual’s sex and ageat-death has been adapted from previous estimations carried out in a palaeodemographic analysis (Víšková et al. 2012). Individuals that were tested for their dental microwear pattern were also linked with their grave goods in order to Table 1. Demographics of the 46 individuals from Prague-Zličín tested for dental microwear pattern. Age Gender 0–6 yrs 7–14 yrs 15–35 yrs 35–50 yrs 50+ yrs Total Subadults Adults Ambiguous 4 2 4 3 1 14 6 8 Females 1 3 9 4 17 1 16