Performance analysis of deciduous morphology for detecting biological siblings

Abstract

Deciduous crown morphology performed well in identifying related sibling pairs. However, there was considerable variation in the extent to which different families exhibited similarly low levels of phenotypic divergence.

Kinship and morphological similarity in the skeletal remains of individuals with known genealogical data (Bohemia, 19th to 20th centuries): A new methodological approach

“…There are two approaches to achieve this aim: DNA analysis (Ricaut et al, ; Deguilloux et al, ) and morphology. In this case, we use (a) osteological and dental nonmetric traits (NMTs) (Stojanowski & Schillaci, ; Paul & Stojanowski, ; Stojanowski & Hubbard, ), (b) selected bone dimensions (Carson, ; Martínez‐Abadías et al, ), and (c) genetically conditioned anomalies manifested in the skeleton (Anderson, ; Berry, ; Case et al, ). According to previous studies (Rösing, , ; Ritschmeier et al, ; Ricaut et al, ), the greatest importance is attributed to nonmetric (NM) phenotypic traits.…”

“From the mouth of a child”: dental attributes and health status during childhood in Mesolithic India

“…Non-metric variations of the deciduous tooth crown have been documented in medieval and modern Danes by Jørgensen (1956), in Japanese and Ainu by Hanihara (1961Hanihara ( , 1966 and Kitagawa (Kitagawa et al, 1995(Kitagawa et al, , 2002Kitagawa, 2000), in native North Americans by Sciulli (1998) and in early hominids and South African Blacks by Grine (1984Grine ( , 1986. Variation in deciduous dental morphology has been used to detect biological siblings in mortuary samples (Paul and Stojanowski, 2015). Unique attributes of deciduous dental morphology, such as the talon cusp, have been noted in prehistoric and living Southeast Asians (Lukacs and Kuswandari, 2009;Halcrow and Tayles, 2010), in an archaeological series from Argentina (Pomeroy, 2009), and in medieval Portugal (Silva and Subtil, 2009 Pathological lesions of the deciduous teeth reveal class differences in oral health in early modern Japan (Oyamada et al, 2008).…”

Bioarchaeology and Kinship: Integrating Theory, Social Relatedness, and Biology in Ancient Family Research

“…Scholars continue to make important methodological contributions to the study of kinship by identifying traits potentially useful as indicators of genetic relatedness within skeletal samples (e.g., Offenbecker and Case 2012;Paul and Stojanowski 2015;Villotte et al 2011), comparing the effectiveness of different types of data for identifying biological relatedness (e.g., Adachi et al 2006;Ricaut et al 2010;Velemínský and Dobisíková 2005), and incorporating new analytical techniques (e.g., Gamba et al 2011;Ricaut et al 2006;Usher and Allen 2005;Usher and Weets 2014).…”

“…The notion that husband-wife and parent-child relationships-cornerstones of ''nuclear'' or ''conjugal'' family unitsare paramount to understanding kinship is flawed, biased, and prohibits a more complete understanding of relatedness (Blackwood 2005;Dowson 2006;Geller 2009a;Hayden 1995;Weston 1991). Even within biological or consanguineal models of kinship, the focus on genealogical (i.e., intergenerational) relationships marginalizes siblingship, a potentially significant aspect of relatedness in many contexts (see Carsten 1995;Gibson 1995;Marshall 1983;Paul and Stojanowski 2015). Alternative, non-heteronormative models of family units are needed to foster different considerations of relatedness.…”