Oral health and nonmolar dental attrition in the Siwa-period individuals from the Bronze Age Mogou cemetery, Northwest China

Abstract

Dental data can reveal evidence for a past population's oral health, nutrition, and certain cultural activities. This study aims to explore oral health and dental attrition during the late Bronze Age in order to explore health outcomes in different subgroups as well as aspects of foodways and changes in subsistence strategies during the second millennium BCE in northwest China. To do this, the skeletal remains of adult individuals associated with the Siwa material culture (1400–1100 BC) from the Mogou site (n = 28) were macroscopically assessed and compared with previously published data derived from a subsample of individuals associated with Qijia period material culture complex (1750–1400 BC) from the same site. The results show that the Siwa-period population experienced a high frequency of carious lesions and antemortem tooth loss associated with advanced attrition (of both molars and nonmolar teeth), which did not vary significantly by sex. Females had a higher prevalence of carious lesions and antemortem tooth loss than did males, while males had a higher prevalence of dental calculus. These male/female health outcomes are also attested during the earlier Qijia period at the Mogou site. The Siwa period differs from the Qijia in that females experienced slightly worse attrition than their predecessors. Overall, oral health does not diverge significantly between the Qijia and Siwa periods, suggesting that the factors that contributed to oral health including dietary practices may have persisted diachronically for individuals buried at this site.