Wear of Teeth in Sheep (WoTiS)-A tool for determining the rate of mandibular tooth wear in sheep

Mutze, Ursula R.; Mutze, Ulrich; Jones, Gillian G. und Peters, Joris (2021): Wear of Teeth in Sheep (WoTiS)-A tool for determining the rate of mandibular tooth wear in sheep. In: Journal of Archaeological Science, Bd. 136, 105300

Abstract

Demographic profiling of a population of sheep buried in toto in the Ptolemaic-Early Roman animal necropolis at Syene/Aswan (Upper Egypt) revealed significantly higher age estimates based on tooth eruption and wear than those based on epiphyseal fusion. Since located in an arid landscape with occasionally heavy dust loads, one plausible assumption would be that at Syene, dental abrasion may have been exceptionally intense. Until now, however, no approach exists to determine the intrinsic rate of tooth wear in archaeological sheep specimens and its effects on demographic profiles. Using occlusal wear patterns observed in mandibular dental rows of large modern sheep populations of known age, we developed a novel method to determine the rate of tooth wear of sheep and estimate the corresponding age at death of the animals. To facilitate such time-consuming analysis, we then developed an IT-tool termed WoTiS (Wear of Teeth in Sheep) that has been coded in R. The paper outlines the principles underlying our approach and guides the reader through our method by way of examples. Discussion focuses on the application of our approach to sheep populations from Celtic Manching (southern Germany) and Late Dynastic-Mamluk Syene (Upper Egypt). Our results underscore the necessity of evaluating the rate of tooth wear in sheep in order to reach valid statements regarding the species' mode of exploitation in ancient cultures.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Tiermedizin > Veterinärwissenschaftliches Department
• Themengebiete: 600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften > 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
• ISSN: 0305-4403
• Sprache: Englisch