Original scientific paper
A Cephalometric Comparison of Skulls from Different Time Periods – The Bronze Age, the 19th Century and the Present
Erwin Jonke
Katrin Schaefer
Josef W. Freudenthaler
Hermann Prossinger
Fred L. Bookstein
Abstract
The aim of this study was to evaluate secular trends by means of orthodontic measurements
on lateral cephalograms. We use roentgenograms from three populations: 22
Bronze Age skulls from a cemetery near Hainburg/Austria, 140 soldiers who served in
the Hapsburg Imperial Army in the late 19th century, and 154 contemporary recruits of
the Austrian Federal Army. Using conventional morphometric analysis, no statistically
significant differences could be established. But applying geometric morphometrics to
the 2D-coordinates of the pentagon composed of the landmarks Sella, Nasion, Articulare,
Gonion and Menton, some biologically interpretable differences were detected, the
size allometry between the 19th- and 20th-century populations being the only notable one.
We conclude that landmarks should be digitised directly (and many more of them) and
that conventional methods used in clinical orthodontics are inappropriate for addressing
the scientific questions approached here.
Keywords
cephalometrics; orthodontics; geometric morphometrics
Hrčak ID:
28176
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2003.
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