Dental maturation of 18th and 19th century British children using Demirjian’s method

Abstract

AIM: To compare dental age with chronological age in a group of children born approximately 200 years ago and a group of modern children. METHODS: Dental maturation of 15 skeletal remains (range 3.0-15.1 years) of London children of known age-at-death was compared to an age and sex matched control group of contemporary children (n = 30). The method of Demirjian, Goldstein and Tanner (1973, 1976, 1978) was used to assess maturity. RESULTS: The difference between dental age (DA) and chronological age (CA) for both groups was not significant, suggesting similar maturation over 200 years, however, many of the younger children from Spitalfields were dentally delayed. Several of the younger individuals from both groups had a dental age less than the lowest limit of this scale (2.5 years), highlighting one pitfall of this method. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that this method is not entirely suitable for younger children.

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