Open AccessDental Caries as a Measure of Diet, Health, and Difference in Non-Adults from Urban and Rural Roman Britain
Author(s) -
Anna Rohnbogner,
Mary Lewis
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
dental anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2769-822X
pISSN - 1096-9411
DOI - 10.26575/daj.v29i1.32
Subject(s) - deciduous teeth , human settlement , deciduous , rural area , enamel hypoplasia , oral health , dentistry , demography , rural settlement , enamel paint , deciduous dentition , geography , environmental health , medicine , archaeology , biology , ecology , sociology , pathology
Dental disease in childhood has the potential to inform about food availability, social status, andfeeding practices, in addition to contributing to a child’s overall health status. This paper presents the first comprehensiveoverview of carious lesion frequencies in 433 non-adults (1-17 years), and 6,283 erupted permanentand deciduous teeth from 15 urban and rural Romano-British settlements. Pooled deciduous and permanentcaries rates were significantly higher in major urban sites (1.8%) compared to rural settlements (0.4%), with childrenfrom urban sites having significantly higher lesion rates in the deciduous dentition (3.0%), and in youngerage groups with mixed dentitions. The differences in dental caries between urban and rural populations suggestdisparities in maternal oral health, early childhood feeding practices, food preparation and access to refined carbohydrates.A richer, perhaps more ‘Roman’, cuisine was eaten in the urban settlements, as opposed to a moremodest diet in the countryside. The effect of early childhood stress on caries frequency was explored using evidencefor enamel hypoplasia. Co-occurrence of caries and enamel hypoplasia was highest in the major urbancohort (5.8%) and lowest in the rural sample (1.3%), suggesting that environmental stress was a contributing factorto carious lesion development in Romano-British urban children.