A team of researchers including a Central Michigan University anthropologist has published research that they said will help others study teeth without destroying them or requiring expensive equipment.
Cathy Willermet, the CMU anthropology professor who co-authored the report in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, said she plans to use the method to study the teeth of people who lived in what is now Mexico before it was colonized by Europeans.
Teeth bear signs of growth much like tree rings, Willermet said. They grow quickly when times are good, and slow down when nutrition is poor or stress is high.
She said the method of study is deceptively simple: mount a microscope on a stand, attach a camera, position the tooth to be studied just so under the microscope, and “take a whole bunch of pictures of it.”
But the exact methodology matters, Willermet said, so that other researchers can use it also and create equivalent images of other teeth and compare their characteristics.
She said the method can be used to analyze anyone’s teeth, but it’s most useful for situations where access is limited -- as in her research, which looks at centuries-old skeletons owned by a museum in Mexico City.
The teeth “don’t have to be old, though. They could be anybody’s teeth. Hypothetically, you could do this in the dental chair if you wanted to. Of course, your dentist is going to have a lovely scanner, so they’re not going to need this method,” said Willermet.
In cases where a dental scanner is not available, she said, the method she published is quick and compact. “I spend three weeks in Mexico City, gather these photos, and bring them back to Michigan and leave the teeth behind.”
Willermet says ancient teeth have important evidence about how people lived and died, and that evidence can be compared with modern teeth to track social and medical progress.