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Les dents sont très importantes pour l’anthropologie physique. Un de ses uses est l’usure dentaire, qui peut documenter les comportements masticatoires et non-masticatoires. Les objectifs de ce travail sont 1) la présentation d’un protocole de registre des évidences d’activités non-masticatoires applicables à contextes diverses (notamment les enterrements collectifs mélangés), 2) la suggestion de outils d’interprétation et 3) l’use des méthodes simples, accessibles et rapides. Méthodes pour adresser les altérations orales, un nouvel trait – «cingular continuous lesions» (CCL) – et testes statistiques sont décrits. Cette méthodologie complément la connaissance archéologique de l’use dentaire en fonctions culturelles, rituelles et de travail. Teeth are a very important resource in Biological Anthropology. One of their many uses is the evaluation of dental wear, which can document both masticatory and non-masticatory behavior. The objectives of this work are to 1) present a protocol for scoring evidence of non-masticatory activity applicable to all kinds of contexts (including commingled collective burials), 2) suggest interpretation tools, and 3) use simple, time-saving and accessible procedures. Procedures addressing oral alterations, a new trait – cingular continuous lesions (CCL) – and statistical analysis are described. This method will complement archaeological knowledge on past populations’ cultural, ritual or work-related tooth uses.

A reference sample of dental and oral nonmetric traits should represent its biological population from which it stems. The presence of individuals born at different times, different regions, and separate countries in the Coimbra-identified cranial collections provides the test of whether this sample reflects the biological continuity of this Portuguese sample among the late modern (early industrialization, nineteenth century) to early contemporary (early demographic transition, first half of the twentieth century) population of this region of central Portugal. The Coimbra collections were scored for 61 traits using methodology by Hauser and De Stefano (1989), Turner et al. (1991), Scott and Turner (1997), Irish (1998), and Marado and Silva (2016). The 600 individuals in the sample were divided by generation, region, and nationality. Their phenetic diversity was tested with principal component analysis and with the mean measure of divergence statistic. The proximity between the subsamples was generalized, and it mimicked previous genetic marker results. Some small subsamples hindered conclusions; nevertheless, this Coimbra sample is considered a reliable dental reference sample for the Portuguese late modern/early contemporary population.