Age-at-death diagnosis and determination of life-history parameters by incremental lines in human dental cementum as an identification aid

Incremental lines in acellular extrinsic fiber cementum of 91 roots from 80 freshly extracted teeth have been investigated for a verification of the suitability of pathological teeth for a valid age-at-death diagnosis. Independent from tooth type, the accuracy of histological age-at-death diagnosis is clearly a function of a tooth's pathological state. Various periodontal diseases lead to a reduced number of incremental lines, while teeth with a sufficient nutritional support of their root showed a deviation of the histological age from the known actual age of 2-3 years only. For all patients, a detailed query concerning a variety of life-history parameters was established. We are able to show that especially previous pregnancies, skeletal traumata and renal diseases which all have a marked influence on the calcium metabolism result in hypomineralized incremental lines. The year of production of these hypomineralized lines could be dated precisely. Differential quality of incremental lines can, therefore, serve as a valuable tool in identification cases.