[Role and research progress of dental medicine in physical anthropology studies]

Physical anthropology is a discipline that studies human physical characteristics and their evolutionary patterns through the analysis of human biological remains. Oral tissues such as teeth and jawbones, serving as crucial or even exclusive materials among human biological remains, establish oral medicine's central role in this field. This paper reviewed the advances in oral medicine's research on key physical anthropology topics and methodologies, including human origins and evolution, paleopathology, paleodietary reconstruction, and paleomicrobiology. In human origins and evolution research, dental morphology provides crucial evidence for identifying population relationships. Paleopathology reflects ancient survival pressures, subsistence economies, and cultural behavioral patterns through oral diseases. Paleodietary research reconstructs ancient dietary structures using dental microwear, trace elements, stable isotopes, and calculus microfossils (e.g., starch grains, ancient DNA, ancient proteins). Paleomicrobiology explores the evolution of health and disease through the oral microbiome. Current research faces limitations including narrow observation of oral diseases, inconsistent diagnostic criteria, and insufficient interdisciplinary integration. Future efforts should enhance multidisciplinary collaboration among oral medicine, archaeology, anthropology, and other fields. This multi-perspective approach will systematically elucidate the evolutionary trajectory of oral health and disease, enrich the historical context of oral medicine, and provide insights for contemporary prevention and treatment of oral diseases.