A study of dentition in pre-Columbian skulls.

Dentition in pre-Hispanic Mexican skulls has been examined in ancient Tenochtitlan--present-day Mexico City--and many different regions of the country, recently excavated. We have reached the conclusion that then, as now, there existed similar dental anomalies in number and position: the lack of certain teeth and the impaction of third molars and upper canines. So far, we have found decay only in back teeth Figs. 11 and 12 A and B). Most frequent was attrition, the severe wearing away of the chewing surface, which must certainly have been due to the primitive diet of seed, hard and dry, mixed with some abrasive material, produced by the grinding of stone against stone (metate) (Figs. 13 and 14) and the use of the teeth as tools. Finally, we should emphasize that we still find shovel-shaped teeth in the pre-Columbian dentition of Mongoloid influence, as well as in some of the present-day Mexican population.