Dental non-metric traits for the assessment of provenance in unidentified migrants

Background: In the global migration crisis, one of the most challenging tasks in the effort to identify deceased migrants is to establish their place of origin, which is essential in the search for antemortem data to be compared with the post-mortem information. Aim: This preliminary study explores the potential of using dental non-metric traits to distinguish individuals coming from two African regions-West Africa and the Horn of Africa. These two regions have a distinct genetic structure, with people from the Horn of Africa showing little genomic connection with West Africans. Material and Methods: We analysed the dentition of 20 migrants with identification documents (14 from West Africa and six from the Horn of Africa), and 27 migrants without documents. The presence/absence of specific dental non-metric traits and additional features, such as crowding or diastema were recorded. Conservative combinations of traits were used to estimate the provenance of the undocumented individuals. Results: Some traits were found exclusively in one group, for example crenulated molars in the documented individuals from West Africa, while other traits were more prevalent in one group, for example the deflecting wrinkle in the documented individuals from the Horn of Africa. Conclusion: The assessment of dental non-metric traits may help assigning human remains to broad geographic areas of origin. The combination of this cost-effective method with other methods, such as the stable isotope analysis may narrow down the search for antemortem information of deceased migrants