Abstract
Since the later Jomon period, frequency of tooth to denture base discrepancy has increased from 8.9% to 63.1%. In other words, the reduction of human dentition progressed substantially through the last two millennia. Consequently, it might be certain that the marked alteration occurred also in the frequency and the specificity of dental diseases and disorders through the same period.
The present paper is dealing with the incidence and extent of dental diseases observed in Japanese skeletal remains from the Kamakura era as part of a project for studying the reduction of human dentition.
The materials are 86 maxillae and 55 mandibles with permanent or mixed dentitions selected from Japanese skulls from the Kamakura era.
After careful examination of dental caries and other related disorders, consideration was taken into the relation between these disorders and the discrepancy. The final conclusion was that the discrepancy was not so dominant in the Kamakura era as in the modern age, but it seemed firmly to exist and to have a pathogenetic influence for dental caries.
