Post‐pleistocene changes in tooth root and jaw relationships

Mandibles of 126 sexed skeletal specimens, from Near Eastern sites dating over the past 12,000 years were radiographed. From the radiographs obtained, digitised tracings were made of crown length (mesiodistal), root height and width, and corpus height mesial to the premolars and first and second molars. The dataobtained were analysed using, rank transformation procedures. The significance of unidirectional trends in relation to periods sampled was examined graphically and analytically through linear regression analysis of the ranks on thechronological scale, and Spearman's rank correlation was used to comparerelationships between different parameters of individual teeth in differentperiods. Significant reduction was found in crown length between 12,000 B.P. and 6,000 B.P., but no further reduction was found between 6,000 B.P. and 1,000 B.P. Little change was observed in root size, but corpus height showed significant reduction over the past 6,000 years. The differences observed in the timing and extent of reduction in crown, root, and corpus height are associated with a lowintrapopulation correlation between them.