A Dental Analysis of the South Dakota Arikara Including a Comparative Analysis of C. G. Turner's 1967 The Dentition of Arctic Peoples

A metric and non-metric dental trait analysis was performed on the South Dakota Arikara population housed at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Fifty-one male, female, and sex indeterminable individual skeletons from the Larson, Leavenworth, Mobridge, and Sully excavations were examined for standard metric and non-metric dental traits. These data were subjected to standard chi-square analyses in order to test for statistically significant sexual dimorphism. Significant sexual dimorphism was found on the basis of many of the metric dental traits. Several non-metric dental traits also exhibited significant sexual dimorphism. This analysis was then compared to C.G. Turner's Arctic populations data and other analyses based on standard dental traits. The South Dakota Arikara data were similar to data obtained from other Asian-derived populations, but differed significantly from data obtained from African-derived and European-derived populations. Instances of non-metric dental trait sexual dimorphism may be traced to studies linking metric and non-metric dental trait sexual dimorphism to developmental dental genetics.