Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 50603, Malaysia. rabiah.rahmat@um.edu.my
  • 2 School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, 5006, Australia
  • 3 Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, 5006, Australia
  • 4 College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, 5042, Australia
  • 5 CSIRO, Land and Water, Locked Bag 2, Glen Osmond, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Int J Legal Med, 2021 Sep;135(5):2045-2053.
PMID: 33655354 DOI: 10.1007/s00414-021-02538-7

Abstract

This study presents a novel tool to predict temperature-exposure of incinerated pig teeth as a proxy for understanding impacts of fire on human teeth. Previous studies on the estimation of temperature-exposure of skeletal elements have been limited to that of heat-exposed bone. This predictive tool was developed using a multinomial regression model of colourimetric and hydroxyapatite crystal size variables using data obtained from unheated pig teeth and teeth incinerated at 300 °C, 600 °C, 800 °C and 1000 °C. An additional variable based on the observed appearance of the tooth was included in the tool. This enables the tooth to be classified as definitely burnt (600 °C-1000 °C) or uncertain (27 °C/300 °C). As a result, the model predicting the temperature-exposure of the incinerated teeth had an accuracy of 95%. This tool is a holistic, robust and reliable approach to estimate temperature of heat-exposed pig teeth, with high accuracy, and may act as a valuable proxy to estimate heat exposure for human teeth in forensic casework.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.