Periodontal Diseases in Anthropology

Dental caries and periodontal disease are two of the most common human diseases along with the common cold. Signs of dental caries have been seen even in early hominids (Australopithecus). It is well known that many signs of dental caries and periodontal disease were also seen in the Krapina Neanderthals and the archaic homo sapiens Kabwe man (also called “Broken Hill Man”: human from 300,000-130,000 years ago) (Fig. 1). Dental caries and periodontal disease are not diseases that appeared in the modern era, so-called “modern diseases” or “diseases of civilization.” Instead, they are ancient diseases with a long history of afflicting mankind. Therefore, the study of dental caries and periodontal disease in ancient people can be a major key to unlock information on their daily lives and behavioural patterns. Such a study on ancient human skeletal remains can provide information on dietary habits and lifestyles in various stages of human evolution, including diet, subsistence and oral hygiene. Dental caries is considered to be the disease with the most case reports in dental paleopathology. The reason is that dental caries occurs in teeth which have the hardest tissue in the human body. Therefore, even if ancient human skeletal remains are excavated in poorly preserved conditions, dental caries can be distinguished relatively easily and data can be accumulated easily for statistical analysis. Studies of dental caries date back to the Meiji and Taisho era in Japan. Today, studies on dental caries are still being actively conducted by (including myself) Sakura; 1964; Sakura, 1989; Yukinari, 1975; Turner, 1979; Inoue et al., 1981; Fujita et al., 1994; Fujita, 1995; Fujita & Suzuki; 1995; Fujita and Hirano,1999; Fujita, 2002; Oyamada et al., 2004; Temple, 2007a, 2007b; Temple and Larsen, 2007; Oyamada et al., 2010). Since there are many studies on dental caries in ancient human skeletal remains from various countries, this chapter will use the results of recent studies as reference (Garcin et al., 2010; Meller et al., 2009). What about the other prevalent disease, periodontal disease? Unfortunately, there are almost no comprehensive studies on periodontal disease in anthropology (Fujita, 1999; Reich et al., 2011; Meller et al., 2009; Silvestoros et al., 2006). Although teeth are made of the hardest material in the body, alveolar bones are fragile. Periodontal disease occurs in this fragile type of bone. Thus, an examination of alveolar bone is not always easy in ancient human skeletal remains that were buried in the soil for many years and a statistical study can be difficult to perform.