The mandible and the maxilla are the lower and upper bones of the jaw. They provide a platform for the teeth and create the shape of the bottom half of a person’s face. The two bones are joined together at the sides with hinge joints which allow the mandible to move when we talk or chew.

These jawbones and teeth can tell pathologists a lot about a person’s age, diet and general health. As we age, humans lose baby teeth, and adult teeth take their place. The number of baby teeth still in the jaw helps identify a skeleton as the remains of either a child, an adolescent or an adult. In addition, the joints of the jaw show signs of wear as a person ages. More wear = greater age!

Teeth can also tell us about the diet of an individual and the way food was processed before cooking. For example, people who ground their food using stone tools (like a mano and metate) often have worn or flattened chewing teeth because of the grit, or small pieces of rock, they ingest with their food. The condition of the teeth—decay, wear marks and such—can help us understand the health problems a person may have been suffering.

Health and Age:The skeleton found on La Belle already had all of his adult teeth so we know that he must have been past adolescence. But the poor man had a mouthful of trouble! He had severely abscessed cavities (cavities that had become infected) that had caused him to lose four molars, the back teeth used for grinding food. On the first molar, only the roots remained! Although the back teeth were no longer there, the scientists could see that the jawbone had deteriorated because of the infected teeth. Even the teeth that were attached to the jawbone were very decayed, and the man also showed signs of infected gums!

Ethnicity :Teeth often can help tell us about ethnicity, in this case, whether the individual was Native American or European. (We believe that Native Americans swam out to La Belle to take some of the cargo as it slowly sank.) One reason we believe that this individual was not Native American is because he did not have shovel-shaped incisors, a characteristic common to people of Asian ethnicity, including Native Americans. Also, there are certain measurements of the skull and other elements that help us determine ethnicity.

Seventeenth-century Europeans did not know much about dental care, and the hardships of this sailor’s life probably contributed to the poor condition of his teeth. Because he no longer had strong molars for grinding, he had to chew his food with his front teeth, which showed signs of wear. Eating was probably a painful task for him. Growth arrest lines on some of the teeth indicate that the man had lived through at least two times when illness or poor nutrition had slowed the rate of his growth. The upper canines and incisors, teeth used for biting, were bent outwards from the jawbone. Perhaps the sailor had the habit of using his front teeth as tools to grip items such as rope when he worked!