page_title: Medieval bioarchaeology
section_title: Enamel hypoplasia
hierarchical_section_title: Medieval bioarchaeology / Non-specific stress indicators / Dental non-specific stress indicators / Enamel hypoplasia
caption_attribution_description: Teeth displaying enamel hypoplasia lines, linear defects of enamel that form during crowns development as a result of periods of nutritional stress or disease during infancy and childhood. Photo Brian Spatola
context_page_description: Medieval bioarchaeology is the study of human remains recovered from medieval archaeological sites. Bioarchaeology aims to understand populations through the analysis of human skeletal remains and this application of bioarchaeology specifically aims to understand medieval populations.
context_section_description: Linear enamel hypoplasias are examples of periods of stress or disruption in a child's health where horizontal bands form on the teeth that can be examined macroscopically and represent a localized decrease in enamel thickness. Enamel hypoplasias are used in bioarchaeological research as markers of childhood physiological stress.
  Justyna Jolanta Miszkiewicz, from the University of Kent, studied linear enamel hypoplasia and age-at-death in the medieval population of Canterbury, UK. She specifically focused on the populations at St. Gregory's Priory and Cemetery. She found 374 teeth with linear enamel hypoplasia in either the mandibular or maxillary permanent teeth. She also found that there were significantly greater frequency of linear enamel hypoplasia in the cemetery compared to the Priory. The mean number of teeth with lLinear enamel hypoplasia in the cemetery was 17.6 and the mean number at the Priory was 7.9. This study also measured age-at-death of the individuals as well as what types of social groups they represented. The results indicated that childhood stress might reflect adult mortality and that the health of individuals from diverse social backgrounds can be assessed using linear enamel hypoplasia analysis.
caption: Teeth displaying enamel hypoplasia lines
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