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Theoretical developments in sociocultural anthropology have transformed the study of kinship. Here, we review these theoretical developments, consider their influence on bioarchaeological kinship research, and propose an alternative framework for studying relatedness in antiquity. We find that broader, more flexible conceptions of relatedness have grown increasingly prevalent in 21st-century bioarchaeology, but kinship research largely continues to emphasize methodological improvement and identification of biological kin in archaeological contexts. By approaching kinship as a multiscalar dimension of social identity, bioarchaeologists can leverage complex conceptions of relatedness with diverse types of data to gain nuanced perspectives on family-based social organization in the past.

The specimen reported here presents a rare form of dental variant-a permanent, mandibular labial canine talon cusp. This anomaly has not previously been reported in the clinical or archaeological literatures and is currently unique. The affected individual is an adult male from the Early Holocene cemetery of Gobero located in the Sahara Desert in the Republic of Niger. The age of this site (ca. 9500 bp) makes this the first archaeological case of labial talon cusp from Africa and the oldest reported talon cusp of any kind (lingual or labial, maxillary or mandibular, incisor or canine) in the world. Previous case studies, population frequency data, sexual dimorphism patterns and distribution within the dentition are discussed for labial talon cusp. The morphological aetiology of talon cusps is reviewed with respect to this specimen.

Dental morphology provides important information on human evolution and interpopulation relationships. Dental wear is one of the major limitations of morphological data analysis. Wear figures heavily in existing debates about patterns of New World dental variation with some scholars finding evidence for a more generalized dentition in early New World populations (Powell: Doctoral Dissertation, Texas A&M University, TX (1995)) and others questioning these findings based on the probable effects of dental wear on trait scores (Turner, The First Americans: the Pleistocene Colonization of the New World. San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences (2002) 123-158; Turner: Am J Phys Anthropol 130 (2006) 455-461; Turner and Scott, Handbook of paleoanthropology, Vol. III: Phylogeny of Hominids. New York: Springer (2007) 1901-1941). Here we evaluate these competing claims using data from the Early Archaic Windover sample. Results confirm the dental distinctiveness of Windover with respect to other Old World Asian (i.e., sinodont/sundadont) populations. However, comparison of our results to those of Powell (1995) also highlights significant interobserver error. Statistical analysis of matched wear and morphology scores suggests trait downgrading for some traits. Patterns of missing data present a more challenging (and potentially serious) problem. Use of Little's MCAR test for missing data mechanisms indicates a complex process of data collection in which incidental and opportunistic recording of both highly worn and unerupted teeth introduce a "missing not at random" mechanism into our dataset that biases dental trait frequencies. We conclude that patterns of missingness and formal research designs for "planned missingness" are needed to help mitigate this bias.

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