Morphometric analysis of the dentition from Bronze Age Tell Leilan, Syria : a contribution to the dental anthropology of ancient Mesoptamia

"The skeletal remains of twenty-one adult and thirty-eight subadult humans were recovered over the course of excavations between 1979 and 1989 from the Bronze Age site of Tell Leilan in northeastern Syria by Dr. Harvey Weiss of Yale University. Non-metric, or discrete trait, analysis reveals that the Tell Leilan permanent and deciduous dentitions exhibit largely Western Eurasian, or Caucasoid, morphological characteristics, while metric analysis reveals a Total Crown Area (permanent = 1189 mm2; deciduous = 497 mm 2) that is slightly larger than more recent Near Eastern and modern European dentitions. The results of the Near Eastern TCA comparison reveal and confirm the pattern of dental reduction observed in other regions and time periods of the world."