Patrones de macrodesgaste dental y diferenciación social en restos óseos del Clásico en el centro de Veracruz

Abstract

Some patterns of dental macrowear are a good indicator to infer diet, oral pathology, material conditions of subsistence, and social status, therefore we analyze these aspects in the dentition of 53 individuals from La Joya and El Conchal Norte, two sites that different range in the same political entity at the Classic period (300-1000 AP) in the Central Veracruz. In this paper, we discuss relationships between this indicator versus archaelogical data that suggests social differences in the lower Cotaxtla-Jamapa basin, considering the problems of an hierarchical society features of centralized states in the Gulf coast for this period. Relative differences mainly in the anterior teeth indicate that El Conchal Norte individuals show greater levels of dental macrowear than their counterparts of La Joya, which coincides in part with the data provided by the studies of settlement patterns and mortuary practices. We concluded that systematically interpreting and studying dental macrowear allow to explain so much better its causes from a biocultural point o view.