Research Topic Summary

My research will be done on the topic of the uses of dental morphology in Anthropology. Dental morphology is used by the anthropologist both for identifying individuals (in a forensic setting) and for comparing populations (the general scope of the dental anthropologist). The paper will focus on the use of nonmetric crown traits in permanent teeth. A nonmetric trait is one which is either present or absent (e.g. shoveling of the incisors) as opposed to a trait which may be measured and quantified (e.g. enamel thickness). Crown traits are those are visible in the mouth in on a cast. I will focus on the permanent dentition for several reasons, but primarily because I am more familiar with adult dentition than the deciduous dentition of children. There is also far more research available on the permanent dentition than on the deciduous. To further narrow the scope of my paper, I have decided to focus on three or four traits (including Carabelli’s trait and shoveling). I will decide on the remaining traits to focus on at a later time. Rather than only describing the traits, which would lead to a short paper, I will also give a brief overview of the world populations that each individual trait is found in, including their frequencies.

A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.

-Benjamin Disraeli