Differences in articular-eminence inclination between medieval and contemporary human populations

The articular-eminence inclination is an important element in the biomechanics of the temporomandibular joint and the entire masticatory system; however, very little is known about this inclination in archaeological human populations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the values of, in addition to the differences between, the articular-eminence inclination in medieval and contemporary human populations. The study was carried out on two dry skull groups. The first group consisted of 14 dry skulls from the medieval culture group Bijelo Brdo (BB) of East Croatia, and the other consisted of 137 recent dry skulls from the osteologic collection of the Institute of Anatomy (IA) in Zagreb. All BB skulls were dentulous, whereas the IA skulls were divided into dentulous and edentulous groups. The articular-eminence inclination was measured in relation to the Frankfurt horizontal plane on digital images of the skull's two lateral views using AutoCAD computer software. The mean value of the articular-eminence inclination in the BB sample group (49.57 degrees) was lower, with a statistical significance (p < 0.01), than those of the IA dentulous (61.56 degrees), the IA edentulous (62.54 degrees), and all the combined IA (61.99 degrees) specimens. Because the values of the articular-eminence inclination can vary a lot with reference to the number of specimens and the different methods used for measuring, the obtained values yield only orientational information. Further investigations including a larger number of medieval specimens are needed to confirm the results obtained from this study. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.