Three of the 6 burials recovered during this excavation show signs of occlusal variation or what is commonly referred to as malocclusion. One of these, Burial 2, has more than one variation. The questions to ask would be: Does this run in families? Are the burials related then? What are the causes of occlusal variation?
To the first and last question: probably but the most accepted reason among anthropologists is that occlusal variation is a result of a soft diet that results in lesser power exertion when chewing or lesser chewing intervals during meals. There is, in fact, an increase in the incidence of occlusal variation among relatively modern humans, compared to those of the Stone Age, because of processed foods. So, what was the diet then of these individuals? Probably, they had little hard meat to chew on, just tender or young wild pigs and plenty of fish of all kinds.
To the second question, are these burials related? Not necessarily since they all had the same sources of food which contributed to the occlusal variation.
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| Burial 2 with the highest occurrence of occlusal variation. |
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| Burial 3, with a maloccluding mandibular canine. |
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| Burial 6 with disalignment of teeth, also an occlusal variation. |
Apropos to our earlier post on the possible filing of teeth, it appears now that the flattened teeth of Burial 6 may be a result of prolonged use, thus indicating an advanced age of probably 60 or more.
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