A cephalometric comparison of skulls from different time periods--the Bronze Age, the 19th century and the present.
Year: 2003
Type: other
Abstract: The aim of this study was to evaluate secular trends by means of orthodontic measurements on lateral cephalograms. We use roentgenograms from three populations: 22 Bronze Age skulls from a cemetery near Hainburg/Austria, 140 soldiers who served in the Hapsburg Imperial Army in the late 19th century, and 154 contemporary recruits of the Austrian Federal Army. Using conventional morphometric analysis, no statistically significant differences could be established. But applying geometric morphometrics to the 2D-coordinates of the pentagon composed of the landmarks Sella, Nasion, Articulare, Gonion and Menton, some biologically interpretable differences were detected, the size allometry between the 19th- and 20th-century populations being the only notable one. We conclude that landmarks should be digitized directly (and many more of them) and that conventional methods used in clinical orthodontics are inappropriate for addressing the scientific questions approached here.
Source: PubMed
Institutions: University of Vienna, University of Michigan
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2184010441