Cardoso Hugo F V
Departamento de Zoologia e Antropologia (Museu Bocage), Museu Nacional de História Natural, Rua da Escola Politécnica 58, 1269-102 Lisboa, Portugal.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2007 Feb;132(2):223-33. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.20482.
This study examines the relationship between measures of skeletal and dental development and socioeconomic factors in a 20th century documented skeletal sample of children from Portugal. The skeletons are of known sex and chronological age, and include other biographic data, such as cause of death. Growth in the length of the long bone is used as a measure of skeletal growth, and schedules of tooth formation are used as a measure of dental development. These two measures of physiological age were compared to chronological age, to assess growth and developmental status. Socioeconomic indicators were obtained from the supporting documentation, and include the occupation of the father and the place of residence, which were used to build a socioeconomic classification based on two groups, one of low and the other of high socioeconomic status. Growth and development status was then compared in these two groups. Results show that socioeconomic differences are much more pronounced in skeletal growth than in dental development. This largely supports the assertion that dental development is buffered against environmental factors relative to skeletal development. However, in this study, skeletal maturation could not be assessed, and findings indicate that dental development can show significant delays at the lower end of the socioeconomic gradient.
本研究考察了20世纪葡萄牙有记录的儿童骨骼样本中骨骼和牙齿发育指标与社会经济因素之间的关系。这些骨骼的性别和实足年龄已知，还包括其他传记资料，如死因。长骨长度的增长被用作骨骼生长的指标，牙齿形成时间表被用作牙齿发育的指标。将这两个生理年龄指标与实足年龄进行比较，以评估生长和发育状况。社会经济指标从辅助文件中获取，包括父亲的职业和居住地，用于构建基于两组的社会经济分类，一组为社会经济地位低的，另一组为社会经济地位高的。然后比较这两组的生长和发育状况。结果表明，社会经济差异在骨骼生长方面比在牙齿发育方面更为明显。这在很大程度上支持了这样一种观点，即相对于骨骼发育，牙齿发育对环境因素具有缓冲作用。然而，在本研究中，无法评估骨骼成熟度，研究结果表明，在社会经济梯度较低端，牙齿发育可能会出现显著延迟。
