| Title |
Exploring diet and dental disease among Napoleonic soldiers through biochemistry and paleopathology / |
| Authors |
Holder, Sammantha ; Miliauskienė, Žydrūnė ; Reitsema, Laurie ; Dupras, Tosha ; Jankauskas, Rimantas |
| DOI |
10.15388/23rdPalAssocEuropMeeting.2022 |
| ISBN |
9786090707579 |
| eISBN |
9786090707586 |
| Full Text |
|
| Is Part of |
23rd Paleopathology Association European meeting, August 25-29, 2022, Vilnius, Lithuania : abstract book.. Vilnius : Vilniaus universiteto leidykla, 2022. p. 84.. ISBN 9786090707579. eISBN 9786090707586 |
| Keywords [eng] |
stable isotope analysis ; oral health ; remaining variation including tooth morphology |
| Abstract [eng] |
Integrating stable isotope and pathological analyses provides valuable insight into the relationship between diet and oral health in the past. We employed stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of femoral collagen, which captures longer-term diet, and rib collagen, which captures later life diet, to investigate the relationship between diet and dental disease among Napoleonic soldiers (n=38) from the 1812 mass gravesite of Šiaurės miestelis in Vilnius, Lithuania. We focused on the following dental pathological conditions: caries index (number of carious teeth divided by teeth observed) and lesion severity (mild, moderate, and severe), number of abscesses, and antemortem tooth loss. Stable isotope results indicate that Napoleonic soldiers consumed heterogenous diets longer-term and later in life, including terrestrial grains and vegetables, terrestrial meat, and possibly freshwater fish. Multiple regression model results indicate that a statistically significant among of variation in mild caries (p=0.03) and moderate caries (p=0.0009), but not severe caries (p=0.61), caries index (p=0.08), abscesses (p=0.65), or antemortem tooth loss (p=0.46) can be explained by variation in femoral and rib stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values. Additionally, 37% of variation in mild caries and 50% of variation in moderate caries can be explained by variation in stable isotope ratios. Thus, while longer-term and later life diets explain some varia - tion in some dental pathological conditions, other sources likely account for remaining variation including tooth morphology, oral hygiene, and hormones. |
| Published |
Vilnius : Vilniaus universiteto leidykla, 2022 |
| Type |
Conference paper |
| Language |
English |
| Publication date |
2022 |
| CC license |
|
