A supernumerary permanent mandibular premolar of wild boar (Sus scrofa L.) from the early medieval Novgorod, Russia

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate a unique case of polydonty in wild boar from the early medieval Novgorod (second half of 11th century AD). The only preserved distal part of the right mandibular branch shows a rotated transitional permanent extra premolar between P 3 and P 4 . This abnormality has the potential to serve as a territorially-based indicator of past wild boar populations.

Caries, Periodontal Disease, Supernumerary Teeth and Other Dental Disorders in Swedish Wild Boar (Sus scrofa)

“…The proportion of polydonty found in the present study was surprising given the fact that supernumerary dentition in the species exceeds the primitive eutherian number (Thenius, 1989). Horwitz and Davidiovitz (1992) and Zinoviev (2010) reported such findings in archaeological material and Konjevic et al (2006) reported a supernumerary C1 in one male wild boar from Croatia. Many theories claim that supernumerary teeth may be of congenital origin and result from development of excess dental lamina, which may lead to the formation of additional tooth germs (Neville et al, 2002).…”

Dental Anomalies in the Mandible of Capra pyrenaica: Presence of Two Permanent Fourth Premolars in a Pleistocene Wild Goat from Arlanpe Cave (Bizkaia, Northern Spain)

“…The other case of supernumerary mandibular premolar similar to that from Arlanpe was recently reported by Zinoviev () on a medieval wild boar from Novgorod (Russia). It displays a supernumerary premolar rotated ca .…”

“…We have found in the literature another two cases of a supernumerary premolar located between the P 3 and P 4 (Natsume et al ., ; Zinoviev, ). In both cases, the authors suggest that the supernumerary premolars display transitional morphologies.…”

“…In fact, in a sample of 140 modern Iberian wild goat mandibles, we could not find a similar case. Similar cases to that from Arlanpe have been found in other artiodactyl species: at least in Capricornis crispus (one individual in a sample of 755 individual; Natsume et al ., ) and in Sus scrofa (Zinoviev, ). The latter author proposed that this abnormality could serve as a territorially based indicator of past wild populations in wild boars.…”

“…The second objective is to study the incidence of this anomaly in different archaeological and modern samples of wild goats and other caprid species and to assess if this case of dental anomaly could be useful for detecting differences between populations. Based on a similar case of polydontia in a medieval wild boar mandible, Zinoviev (: 588) suggests that the anomaly present in that specimen could potentially serve ‘as an indicator of timely and territorially based particular wild pig's population’, and thus, we aim to test his suggestion using archaeological and modern collections.…”