Tooth Size of People in Wabag, Papua New Guinea Highlanders and its Comparison with Pacific Peoples

Abstract

Dental casts were recently collected from Highlanders in Kasi Village of Wabag in Enga Province of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Mean age of subjects was 19.2 years ranged from 16 to 44. The mesiodistal and buccolingual diameters of all upper and lower teeth (except third molars) were measured. Sex differences of these diameters were relatively large in this population compared with other Pacific populations. The results were compared with previous reports of Asian Pacific populations including some Highland groups of PNG by cluster analysis and multi-dimensional scaling from Mahalanobis' distances, Q-mode correlation coefficients and Penrose's size distances. In the Mahalanobis' distances, Wabag was clustered in the groups of Melanesians and Australian Aboriginals. In the analysis of the distances transformed from Q-mode correlation coefficients, Wabag was also clustered with these groups, but Fiji was clustered in Polynesians and Micronesians. In the Penrose's size distances, Wabag teeth were smaller than other Highlanders such as Goroka and Lufa, but were close to Polynesians. This suggested that tooth size varied in a Highlander groups in PNG and that there were marked polymorphism of Melanesians.