Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Dental Health and the Agricultural Transition in Sonora, Mexico

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Many diseases and nutritional imbalances leave permanent imprints in the skeleton providing a unique record to study ancient health problems. This research examines the teeth of a prehistoric human skeletal population from northern Sonora, Mexico to explore the changes in human health that accompany the transition to corn agriculture in the North American Desert West approximately 4000 years ago. High yields, ease of harvest and storage was likely an incentive for early Sonorans to shift from mobile foraging to corn farming. This change in diet and mobility greatly impacted and seriously worsened human health over the course of the next several thousand years and eventually led to region-wide social collapse by the end of the 14th Century. It is hypothesized here that corn dependence gradually increased among human groups in the Sonoran Desert over the course of the Early Agricultural period (1500 B.C.-A.D. 200). This hypothesis will be tested by recording a suite of ten dental observations (i.e.-abscesses, attrition, caries, tooth loss, etc.) that correlate with dental health on a sample of 200 prehistoric human skeletons recovered from La Playa, an Early Agricultural period archaeological site located in Sonora, Mexico. Observations made on the population's dental health will be tied to a time scale by radiocarbon and fluoride dating. The hypothesis predicts that the La Playa burials will demonstrate a measurable decline in dental health (i.e.-increased frequencies of disease, damage, and wear angles) as corn increases in dietary importance over the course of the archaeological record.This research is significant because it uses a biologically based model of dental health to test a contested archaeological proposition concerning the introduction and adoption of corn agriculture in the North American Desert West. In addition, the La Playa burial population is the largest (at least ten times larger) and earliest burial sample dating to this time period, which makes these skeletons unique to test the proposed changes associated with increased dependence on agriculture. Furthermore, this project represents a multidisciplinary effort utilizing bone chemistry dating (Fluoride and AMS) and an analysis of dental health to address an archaeologically-based question about the interaction between socio-political changes, diet, and subsistence practices.This research will enhance networks and partnerships by creating an international cooperation with Mexican scholars which will lead to the organization of international workshops on corn domestication and bio-cultural changes affecting both humans and deserts. It will also enhance the professional development of the student.