Dental Morphology for Anthropology ─ An Illustrated Manual

This work provides a new, comprehensive update to the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System (ASUDAS). Drawing upon her extensive experience in informatics, curating data, and dental morphological data acquisition, Edgar has developed accessible and user-friendly standardized images and descriptions of dental morphological variants. The manual provides nearly 400 illustrations that indicate ideal expressions of each dental trait. These drawings are coupled with over 650 photographs of real teeth, indicating real-world examples of each expression. Additionally, trait descriptions have been written to be clear, comparative, and easy to apply. Together, the images and descriptions are presented in a standardized form for quick and clear reference. All of these modifications to ASUDAS make it more usable for students and professionals alike. In addition to these features of the manual, the text makes a brief but strong argument for why dental morphology will continue to be a useful tool in biological anthropology through the 21^st century.

Heather J.H. Edgar is Curator of Human Osteology for the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, and Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, USA. Her research focuses on the ways in which historical events and cultural trends shape the biology of populations, especially in the U.S. and Mexico.