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Revista argentina de antropología biológica
On-line version ISSN 1514-7991
Abstract
MENENDEZ, Lumila Paula and MIRANDA DE ZELA, Paula. Análisis comparativo de índices de caries dentales a partir de muestras de sitios arqueológicos del Holoceno tardío de la República Argentina. Rev Arg Antrop Biol [online]. 2017, vol.19, n.2. ISSN 1514-7991. http://dx.doi.org/10.17139/raab.2017.0019.02.03.
The prevalence of dental caries on bioarchaeological samples enables the study of the proportion of carbohydrates in the diet of past populations. A review of previous researches in Argentina shows two ways of analyzing and presenting the results, either in relation to the number of individuals, and/or regarding the number of teeth in the sample. The aim of this work is to analyze the distribution of dental caries in four Late Holocene archaeological samples from different regions of Argentina using both indexes, in order to compare, interpret, and discuss the results obtained. To this end, caries were registered and indexes were calculated on the basis of the number of individuals (IA) and the total tooth count (IB) per sample. Boxplots and a χ2 test were performed to evaluate the existence of differences in the distribution of caries values using both indexes. Finally, correlations between the indexes, and 13C and 15N isotope data were calculated. The results show that there are no significant differences on dental caries values among the different groups studied when considering both IA and IB; conversely, the trends are similar. Moreover, both indexes are associated with 13C variation, and the variation of IA is correlated with 15N values. We conclude that both indexes should be used complementarily due to the different kind of information they provide, and we encourage future researchers to report caries prevalence using both indexes in order to make their results comparative.
Keywords : Caries index; 13C isotopes; 15N isotopes; Late Holocene; Argentina.