A new way of looking at tooth enamel could give scientists a path to deeper understanding of the health of human populations, from the ancient to the modern.
The method, published this week in the Journal of Archaeological Science, examines two immune proteins found embedded in human tooth enamel: immunoglobulin G, an antibody that fights infection, and C-reactive protein, which is present during inflammation in the body.
"These proteins are present in tooth enamel, and they are something we can use to study the biological and potentially the emotional health of past human populations," said Tammy Buonasera, an assistant professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and lead author of the paper. "Analysis of immune proteins in enamel has not been done before, and this opens the door to studying disease and health in the past in a more targeted way than we can today."
The study began when Buonasera was a research associate at the University of California, Davis. She and collaborators, including representatives from local Indigenous tribes, tested for the presence and amount of the proteins in tooth enamel from three groups of people:
Ancestral Ohlone people from a mission outpost dating to the late 1700s and early 1800s in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their skeletons were inadvertently discovered during a 2016 construction project in the area. Tribal descendants gave permission for their teeth to be used in the study.
