Department of Prosthodontics, School of Dental Medicine, University of Zagreb, Gundulićeva 5, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
Arch Oral Biol. 2012 Aug;57(8):1147-52. doi: 10.1016/j.archoralbio.2012.05.009. Epub 2012 Jun 19.
The articular-eminence inclination is an important element in the biomechanics of the temporomandibular joint and the entire masticatory system; however, very little is known about this inclination in archaeological human populations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the values of, in addition to the differences between, the articular-eminence inclination in medieval and contemporary human populations. The study was carried out on two dry skull groups. The first group consisted of 14 dry skulls from the medieval culture group Bijelo Brdo (BB) of East Croatia, and the other consisted of 137 recent dry skulls from the osteologic collection of the Institute of Anatomy (IA) in Zagreb. All BB skulls were dentulous, whereas the IA skulls were divided into dentulous and edentulous groups. The articular-eminence inclination was measured in relation to the Frankfurt horizontal plane on digital images of the skull's two lateral views using AutoCAD computer software. The mean value of the articular-eminence inclination in the BB sample group (49.57°) was lower, with a statistical significance (p<0.01), than those of the IA dentulous (61.56°), the IA edentulous (62.54°), and all the combined IA (61.99°) specimens. Because the values of the articular-eminence inclination can vary a lot with reference to the number of specimens and the different methods used for measuring, the obtained values yield only orientational information. Further investigations including a larger number of medieval specimens are needed to confirm the results obtained from this study.
关节结节倾斜是颞下颌关节和整个咀嚼系统生物力学的一个重要因素；然而，关于考古人群中的这种倾斜，人们知之甚少。因此，本研究的目的是确定中世纪和当代人群中关节结节倾斜的差异。该研究在两个干颅骨组上进行。第一组由来自克罗地亚东部比耶洛布尔诺（BB）中世纪文化组的 14 个干颅骨组成，另一组由萨格勒布解剖学研究所（IA）的骨骼收藏中的 137 个现代干颅骨组成。所有 BB 颅骨都有牙齿，而 IA 颅骨则分为有齿和无齿组。使用 AutoCAD 计算机软件，在颅骨两侧视图的数字图像上，以法兰克福水平面为参照，测量关节结节倾斜度。BB 样本组的关节结节倾斜平均值（49.57°）较低，具有统计学意义（p<0.01），低于 IA 有齿组（61.56°）、IA 无齿组（62.54°）和 IA 全部组合组（61.99°）的平均值。由于关节结节倾斜度的参考值可以因标本数量和测量方法的不同而有很大的差异，因此获得的值仅提供方向信息。需要进一步的研究，包括更多的中世纪标本，以证实本研究的结果。
