20 The Dentition of American Indians: Evolutionary Results and Demographic Implications Following Colonization from Siberia

Uto-Aztecan premolar (UAP) is a rare morphological feature of the maxillary first premolar that occurs in Native American populations with frequencies ranging 0-16.7%. A recent summary of UAP by Delgado-Burbano et al. (2010) suggests the trait evolved around 4,000 BP in the American Southwest where the earliest cases occur and where the trait exists at the highest frequencies among contemporary populations. In this article, we present new data on UAP prevalence from an Archaic North American sample from Buckeye Knoll, Texas (circa 7,500-6,200 cal BP). Buckeye Knoll preserves a single case of UAP, and a sample frequency of 3.6%. In addition, we confirm the presence of UAP in other eastern North American Archaic skeletal samples from the Windover and Harris Creek at Tick Island sites in Florida. We also review the dental morphological literature to assess: 1) whether UAP prevalence is limited to New World populations, and 2) whether the trait's antiquity can be extended further into the Early Holocene Paleoindian period. Additional cases of UAP are presented from the Pacific coast of South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Combined, these data greatly expand the spatial and temporal distribution of UAP and suggest the trait evolved considerably earlier than previously thought.

New evidence on the spatiotemporal distribution and evolution of the Uto‐Aztecan premolar

Johnson

Stojanowski

Miyar

et al. 2011

Brief communication: The Uto‐Aztecan premolar in early hunter‐gatherers from South‐Central North America

Taylor¹

2012

The Uto-Aztecan premolar is a discrete dental trait found in low frequency (<2%) among world populations. The highest frequencies of the trait have been found among the indigenous populations of North America and, to a lesser extent, South America. Because of the trait's relatively higher frequency in the Western Hemisphere, the antiquity and distribution of the feather is important for reconstructing the biocultural interactions of prehistoric populations. While early research concluded that the Uto-Aztecan premolar originated in the American Southwest around 4,000 years Before Present (BP), more recent studies have discovered the trait across the Americas and in parts of Europe and Asia. For this study, over 300 dentitions representing foragers and farmers in south-central North America were examined. The trait was found in relatively high frequency (over 11%) in Archaic hunter-gatherer populations from Central Texas, with high frequencies also found in the adjacent western Gulf Coastal Plain. The presence of this trait in Early Archaic populations suggests that the trait was present by 8,000 BP and persisted at a high frequency into the Late Archaic period.

Observer error, dental wear, and the inference of new world sundadonty

Stojanowski

Johnson

2014

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.