Dental caries found in the human skull of Tang dynasty excavated fron Xi'an / 中华口腔医学杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the status of dental caries in the human of Tang dynasty.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>All teeth in 62 human skulls of Tang dynasty excavated from the Chang'an county in Xi'an city were examined and analyzed by statistics. The difference of prevalence in different group including age, sex and tooth position was tested with Chi-square test.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The prevalence of dental caries was 62.9%. And there were 92 caries teeth, which was 14.6% of the whole teeth. The root caries (33.3%) was more than the occlusal caries (28.7%). The most frequent recorded caries were the third molar, followed by the second molar, then the first molar. There was no significant difference between male and female.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The dental caries was popular in human of Tang dynasty, but the prevalence lowers than the modern people. And with the human evolution and the improvement of the social productivity, the prevalence of dental caries was gradually ascending.</p>