The Bushman Maxillary Canine of the Chewa Tribe in East-Central Africa.

Abstract

The expression of the Bushman Canine dental trait among the Chewa tribe of East-Central Africa is described and compared with that of other African populations. Dental hard stone casts were obtained from 82 males and 76 females, and the trait was scored using the Arizona State University dental plaque system. No significant sexual dimorphism in the occurrence of the trait was found according to the chi-square test. The frequency of the Bushman Canine in the Chewa is markedly lower than that in a sample of San (Bushman) from Botswana. This helps support the view that the San represent either an ancestral or perhaps a different stock of people in comparison to other sub-Saharan Africans. When comparing the Chewa with a Central Sotho sample from South Africa, it appears that a gradient of the trait's frequency exists with decreasing expression from south to north. This gradient is probably caused by admixture between San and other peoples (mainly Bantuspeakers) who may not have originally possessed the trait. These findings agree with the so-called "Bantu-expansion" model proposed by several workers.

Population continuity vs. discontinuity revisited: Dental affinities among late Paleolithic through Christian‐era Nubians

“…All traits were previously found to be largely independent of one another (Nichol, 1990). ASUDAS procedures are based on well-established criteria for scoring intratrait variation, and proved reliable in many preceding studies (e.g., Scott, 1973Scott, , 1980Turner, 1985aTurner, , 1987Turner, , 1992Sakuma and Ogata, 1987;Sakuma et al, 1991;Haeussler et al, 1988;Turner and Markowitz, 1990;Irish and Turner, 1990;Irish, 1993Irish, , 1994Irish, , 1997Irish, , 1998aIrish, -d, 2000Jackes et al, 2001). Traits are recorded using 23 rank-scale reference plaques that help standardize scoring by providing representations of minimum, maximum, and common intermediate expressions (Turner et al, 1991).…”

Deciduous canine morphology in recent Japanese

“…Key words: Deciduous canine, permanent canine, crown morphology, tooth size, crown index (Leutenegger, 1976;Leutenegger and Kelly, 1977;小木曽，1982;Greenfield, 1990;Sakuma et al, 1991 (Ward et al, 2001) や Australopithecus africanus の 研 究 (Moggi-Cecchi et al, 1998 (Johanson, 1974;酒井・高橋， 1985;Plavcan, 1993 (Schultz, 1958;Frisch, 1963;Garn et al, 1967 Pan paniscus(Male) 72.9 Johanson, 1974 Pan paniscus(Female) 72.5 Johanson, 1974 Pan troglodytes(Male) 68.4 山田，未発表 Pan troglodytes (Female) 74.2 山田，未発表 Au. afarensis (Hadar) 80.7 Johanson et al, 1982 Au.…”

Technical note: Canine Mesial Ridge (Bushman Canine) dental trait definition

“…Numerous studies have shown that the trait is entirely absent or occurs in very low frequencies in non-African populations (e.g., Morris, 1975;Turner 1985Turner , 1992aIrish, n.d.;Hawkey, personal communication, 1994;Hemphill, personal communication, 1994). However, it occurs in up to 40+ percent of southern African Khoisan-speaking peoples (i.e., San and Khoikhoi), and exhibits a significant Pan-African distribution (see Morris, 1975;Sakuma et al, 1991;Irish, 1993Irish, , 1994Irish, , 1995Irish and Turner, 1990). Therefore, we feel that the trait's definition should be reiterated to help prevent future misidentification by dental researchers and thus maintain its utility as part of a diagnostic suite of African dental attributes (see Irish, 1993Irish, , 1994Irish, , 1995.…”