Racial Identification of the Bronze Age Human Dentitions from Bali, Indonesia

¹ Gadjah Mada University College of Medicine, Jogjakarta, Indonesia

The main problem in racial identification of archeological remains of human skeletons in Indonesia and southeast Asia is to separate the Mongoloid from the Australoid elements and, since the Mongoloid pattern of dentition has been extensively studied, utilization of dental traits in making racial determinations was tested. The dentitions studied were those of 33 adult human skeletons recently excavated from the Bronze Age urn burial of Gilimanuk, Bali, and dating from the beginning of the Christian era. In the past, emphasis has been placed on the odontometric characters in investigating subrecent dentitions discovered in Indonesia; in the present study, more attention was given to the nonmetrical morphologic characters. The material from Gilimanuk was found to conform more closely to the Mongoloid master pattern for marginal ridging of the anterior teeth, rotation of the incisors, three-cusped lower second premolars, cusp and groove pattern of lower and upper molars, wrinkling of molar occlusal surface, and crown dimensions.

Thus, the conclusion was that the population of Bronze Age Gilimanuk was preponderantly Mongoloid; this could be substantiated by observing facial and cranial features. Dental traits appear useful in making identifications from archeological remains, especially from isolated teeth.