Tooth size and the Carabelli trait

The Carabelli trait and its association with maxillary molar crown base and cusp size was studied in a group of 128 Kwengo, a San-Negro hybrid community living in Western Caprivi, Namibia. The trait was classified according to a modification of the scheme put forward by Dahlberg and by Scott (In: Dental Anthropology, New York: Pergamon, 1963) (Hum. Biol. 52:63-78, 1980). Crown base areas were larger in trait-positive than in trait-negative molars, and this difference existed for all eight categories of the trait in the first molar and for most of the categories in the second and third molars. The degree of expressivity of the trait seems to be associated with molar size, but this is more apparent in the first than in the second and third molars.