Abstract
TEETH AND JAWS OF THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES.—Anthropologists have long stood in need of data relating to the teeth and jaws of a primitive human race. This want has now been supplied by the publication, on the part of the University of Adelaide, of a thesis submitted to it by Dr. T. D. Campbell for the degree of Doctor of Dental Science (“Dentition and Palate of the Australian Aboriginal,” The Hassell Press, 1925). Dr. Campbell's monograph is founded on a systematic examination of 630 dentitions collected from all regions of Australia, and representing every stage in the growth, eruption and wear of aboriginal teeth. The measurements of teeth and palate which are supplied by Dr. Campbell will prove of the utmost utility, and many of his observations are of high interest. In form and size of crown, in the number and arrangement of cusps, and in the development of roots, the teeth of the aborigines are “exceedingly primitive, probably more so than in any other living race and also than in some extinct races, such as Tasmanian and Neanderthal man.” Large as are the dimensions of the molar teeth of Pithecanthropus (the Java man), Dr. Campbell met with examples in his series which outdid them. Particularly interesting to students of the teeth of fossil races of mankind are his observations on the filling up of the pulp cavity as a reaction to the wear of the crown—a reaction seldom seen in the teeth of civilised races. Campbell found that even amongst the aborigines the third molar teeth are the most variable, but whereas he had to examine nearly 200 skulls to find a single instance in which a third molar was absent, an English dentist would have to examine no more than five mouths to find a similar number. On the other hand, an English dentist would have to search 500 patients or more to find a fourth or supernumerary molar, whereas Dr. Campbell found seven or more instances in a similar number of Australian aborigines. We have touched only on a few of the important and novel observations made by Dr. Campbell.
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Research Items. Nature 117, 837–838 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/117837a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/117837a0