“…As a permanent and highly visible form of body modification, tooth ablation is recognized as an artifact of human behaviour that can convey significant cultural information (Alt & Pichler, ; Milner & Larsen, ; Mower, ). Although the underlying motivations for purposefully removing anterior teeth vary, ablation can reflect aspects of social identity including ethnicity, status, and kinship or may correspond with life cycle events, ritually marking social transitions associated with adulthood, matrimony, or death and mourning (Kusaka et al, ; Pietrusewsky & Douglas, ; Pietrusewsky, Lauer, Tsang, Li, & Douglas, ; Stojanowski, Carver, & Miller, ; Temple, ; Temple, Kusaka, & Sciulli, ). Contextualizing body modification practices such as tooth ablation can offer insights into the ways in which past peoples conceptualized and made tangible social differences experienced during life (Knudson & Stojanowski, ; Torres‐Rouff & Knudson, ; Velasco, ).…”