Dental Non-Metric Traits in a Preconquest Sample from Tastil Region in Argentina, South America

Reconstruction of biological relationships between ancient human groups using teeth is an important research problem for South American bioarcheologist. The present study was carried out with a Tastil human pre-conquest sample from Northwest of Argentina, with the aim of exploring the dental morphology patterns in this population. The sample of this study is composed by 19 skulls with partial dentitions from Santa Rosa de Tastil ruins (Salta Province, Argentina). 12 dental non-mtetric traits were recorded using the ASU Dental Anthropology System. Percentages >70% was not found. Values between 0,1 and 70% was found in 12 traits of upper dentition only. In spite of the frequencies finding in Tastil sample can be influences by a low sample size, we can conclude that shovel shape of the incisors in the population of Tastil suggest a Mongoloid origin