Relationships between Dental Topography, Gross Wear, and Bang and Ramm/Liversidge and Molleson Age Estimates for a Sample of Human Premolar Teeth

OBJECTIVES: Molar crown wear is often used in bioarchaeological research as a proxy for age at death. However, a small number of researchers have used premolars or compared the application of different methods of relative age estimation. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Using a sample of 197 previously extracted maxillary first premolars from US dental patients, we considered three protocols for estimating age: the Bang and Ramm/Liversidge and Molleson (BRLM) age estimate method, occlusal topographic analysis, and the Smith system of macrowear scoring. A previous study utilizing the Bang and Ramm method yielded an age estimate range of 9.4 to 10.8 years for the sample. RESULTS: Our analyses showed no associations between occlusal topography parameters (occlusal slope, relief, or faceting) and BRLM age estimates, but some concordance was found between Smith scoring and BRLM ages estimates and between Smith scoring and occlusal topography parameters. CONCLUSION: The results of the present study suggest that relationships between gross tooth wear, tooth shape, and dental age estimates are complex, and available methods should be considered together to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how teeth change their shape with wear throughout the lifecourse.