Dental Chipping: Contrasting Patterns of Microtrauma in Inuit and European Populations

While the study of dental wear has enjoyed wide popularity for over 100 years, dental chipping, or microfractures of the tooth crown, has received little attention. Observations on dental chipping in populations from the Arctic (St. Lawrence Island, Alaska) and Europe (medieval Norway and Spain) reveal patterns of microtrauma that provide insights into the dietary and tooth-tool use behaviour of earlier populations. St. Lawrence Island Inuit, with an emphasis on consuming tough and frozen foods, in combination with extensive tooth-tool use, exhibit a pattern of chipping that is characterised as ‘molar dominant’. The two European samples exhibit an ‘incisor-dominant’ pattern but contrast markedly in frequencies, with medieval Norwegians showing signifcantly more chipping than medieval and post-medieval Spanish. The systematic study of chipping promises to provide a new perspective on how populations used and/or abused their dentitions in earlier times. Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.