Diet is a controlling factor in several common groups of dental diseases. These include those due to bacterial deposits on the teeth and to defects of dental structure. Much recent research has been carried out, so that the relationship of diet to these diseases is now well known. This allows the frequencies of occurrence of dental diseases in ancient skeletal material to be used as indicators of the diet eaten by the population during life. A description is given of the theory behind this method and an example of its applications to skeletal material from Egyptian and Nubian cemeteries.
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Simon Hillson (1979) studied this question.
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