Evolution of dentition in prehistoric Ohio Valley Native Americans III. Metrics of deciduous dentition

Deciduous tooth size in Native Americans of the Ohio Valley area is fairly stable from the terminal Late Archaic (3200 BP) through the Late Prehistori c (350 BP) periods. Some fluctuation in average size did occur during this time. These fluctuations most likely reflect random changes due to gene dri ft. However, no difference in the pattern of interactions among the sizes o f teeth (covariance structures) can be demonstrated during this period. Pri ncipal components analysis of the buccolingual and mesiodistal dimensions i n the total sample indicate that the major axis of deciduous tooth size in the Ohio Valley population shows an allometric relationship, with the dimen sions of the anterior teeth increasing (or decreasing) as the 1.33 power of the dimension of m(1)(1), and as the 2.0 power of the dimension of m(2)(2) . Comparison of the Ohio Valley samples with other samples from the Eastern Woodlands suggests that geography may have played a minor role in structur ing deciduous tooth size variation. For the most part, however, widely sepa rated Eastern Woodlands populations appear to have been evolving independen tly with respect to deciduous tooth size. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.