A Study On The Tooth Wear Of The Bronze-iron Age's Population From Jiayi Cemetery,Turpan Basin

This paper presents a study of the tooth wear,oral diseases and masticatory stress on the human teeth from Jiayi Cemetery,which is located in Turpan City,Xinjiang Province.217 Bronze-Early-Iron Age's burials from Jiayi Cemetery was excavated during 2013-2014,by Turpan Academy and Xinjiang Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute.These burials were organized in great order,without any overlying or disturbance.Most of the burials are earth-pit tombs with the shape of oval or rectangle,and some late burials still have apparent grave mounds.The majority of these burials are single-burials,and most of the occupants were buried with their faces down on,limbs bended.According to the geographical location,burial forms and unearthed materials of this cemetery,Jiayi Cemetery can be dated to 10^th-2^nd Century BC,belonging to the remains of Subeixi Culture.Subeixi Culture is the only prehistoric archaeological culture founded around Turpan Basin.Important excavated sites of this culture include Alagou,Subeixi,Aidinghu,Yanghai,Shengjindian,etc.It is undoubted that the discovery of Jiayi Cemetery contributes a lot to the researches on the social construction,subsistence economy and natural environment which were faced by ancient populations living around Turpan Basin.This paper focuses on the teeth of 69 young adults from Jiayi Cemetery by observing,counting and analyzing the wear pattern of well-preserved teeth,as well as oral diseases and features.Ethological surveys,related archaeological findings and modern medical researches are considered to preliminarily discuss the causes of the complex wear pattern of teeth and the occurrence rate of oral diseases,leading to some speculates of the diet and subsistence economy of this ancient population.Six chapters are presented in this paper.The first chapter is an introduction of the geographical,historical and archaeological conditions of this cemetery.The second chapter tells about the research of tooth wear stages,based on the standard of Smith.The third chapter quantifies the oblique wear phenomenon using an index named Wear Orientation(I_WO).The forth chapter researches on the microwear on the buccal faces of 10 well-preserved molars belonging to individuals without serious oral diseases.The index of LH/LV is calculated basing on the lengths and orientations of striations discovered under a digital microscope,and is compared with those of modern populations whose subsistence economies and diets are known.The fifth chapter is about the data of other kinds of tooth wear phenomena,as well as some common oral features and diseases.The last chapter is also the epilogue of this paper,summarizing the conclusions from chapters above,and synthetically discusses the diet and subsistence economy of Jiayi population.According to the research,the daily food of Jiayi population tended to be hard,with meat occupied the majority.The gender differences in tooth wear stages and wear orientation indicate that men might rely more on hard food as they were the main members in nomadic groups.