Teeth provide valuable information about an organism’s diet and lifestyle. Humans have heterodont dentition, allowing them to eat a varied diet, while some animals have homodont dentition. Dentists, biologists, archaeologists, and forensic anthropologists study dentition for various reasons, including identifying victims of crimes and developing treatment plans for dental issues.
Teething is a term that refers to the arrangement of the teeth in the mouth. Different animals can have very different dentition depending on their primary diets; in humans, there are 32 teeth shared between the upper and lower jaws. Teeth can provide a wealth of information about a person or animal and how it lives or lived; biologists, archaeologists and dentists all study dentition as part of their job.
Many animals are born with what is known as the primary, dairy, dairy, or deciduous dentition. Teeth begin forming in the jaw in utero and erupt after birth. These primary teeth remain in place throughout childhood and are gradually replaced by the adult or secondary dentition. Typically the deciduous dentition has fewer teeth which are also smaller and these teeth can be retained for varying lengths of time. Some animals may have more than two sets of teeth, allowing three or four sets of teeth to grow in sequence.
Depending on what an organism eats, its teeth can be quite varied. Animals such as humans have the so-called heterodont dentition, which means that their dentition is made up of a mixture of tooth types. This allows humans to eat a varied diet because their teeth are equipped for grinding, cutting and tearing. In contrast, animals such as armadillos are homodont, with only one type of tooth, because this is sufficient for their food requirements.
Dentists study the dentition so they can care for their patients more effectively. In dental school, doctors learn how teeth develop, what they are made of, and what kinds of problems can crop up in the mouth. Humans can experience problems ranging from impacted teeth to tooth decay. Using tools such as dental molds, x-ray images, and visual exams, dentists can learn about the arrangement of teeth in a specific patient and develop appropriate treatment plans.
People like archaeologists are interested in the teeth of historical humans and non-human animals because they provide interesting insight into the process of evolution and how animals lived at various periods in history. Similarly, forensic anthropologists may use teeth to identify victims of crimes or to gather information that can help with identification, including making impressions of teeth prints to find people associated with a crime scene. For example, if a criminal eats an apple and throws it aside, the marks in the apple can be studied and compared to molds taken from the suspects’ mouths to see if there is a match.
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