Root and canal morphology of the permanent teeth in medieval and current French population

This work describes and compares the root and root canal morphology of a medieval population dating from the 8th to 10th century from the southwest of France, and a current French population.

The root morphology of 579 teeth from 70 medieval individuals was analyzed using cone beam computed tomography, and compared with 690 teeth from a current French population of 329 individuals. The Vertucci classification was used to describe the root canal configuration.

In the medieval population, the maxillary first premolar usually had one root. In contrast, in the current population this tooth predominantly had two roots, and the three-root form had appeared. Mandibular canine with two roots was observed in 5.7% of cases, and in the current population this form was found in 1.6% but the difference was not significative. The greatest variability between the two populations in terms of root canal configuration was in one-rooted maxillary first and second premolars, the mandibular canines, and the distal roots of the mandibular first molars. Differences in root numbers and canal configurations of the maxillary molars investigated among the two populations were not significant.

This study indicated that the upper first premolar of the current population tended to have more than one root, while this tooth type of the medieval group mostly appeared with only one. For the root canal configuration, studies in the upper premolars, lower canines and first molars of the current population apparently revealed a significant simplification compared with the ancient group.