Dental health and diet in early medieval Ireland.

OBJECTIVE

With the aim to get a better picture of dental health, diet and nutrition in early medieval Ireland a population-based study focusing on several attributes of oral health in adult individuals was conducted. The study focused on possible differences between sexes and age groups in terms of frequency and distribution of studied pathologies in order to determine whether these differences result from different diets, cultural practices or are age-related.

DESIGN

Permanent dentitions belonging to adult individuals from five Irish early medieval sites were examined for the evidence of caries, ante-mortem tooth loss, abscesses, calculus, alveolar bone resorption and tooth wear. All pathologies were analysed and presented by teeth and alveoli.

RESULTS

A total of 3233 teeth and 3649 alveoli belonging to 167 individuals (85 males and 82 females) were included into the analysis. Males exhibited significantly higher prevalence of abscesses, heavy wear and alveolar bone resorption, while females exhibited significantly higher prevalence of calculus. All studied dento-alveolar pathologies showed a strong correlation with advanced age, except calculus in females. Additionally, dental wear associated with habitual activities was observed in two females.

CONCLUSION

The results of the present study confirm the data gained by written sources and stable isotopes analyses suggesting the diet of the early Irish was rich in carbohydrates with only occasional use of meat. Furthermore, significant differences between the sexes in terms of recorded pathologies strongly suggest different nutritional patterns with females consuming foods mostly based on carbohydrates in comparison to males. The observed sex-differences might also occur due to differences between male and female sex such as reproductive biology and pregnancy, a somewhat different age distributions, but also as a result of different cultural practices between the sexes.