Um olhar renovado sobre a avaliação da ancestralidade

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All that glitters is not gold: X-ray fluorescence analysis of a fixed dental prosthesis from Colecção de Esqueletos Identificados Século XXI, Portugal (CEI/XXI)

Publication . Oliveira-Santos, Inês; Gomes, Ricardo A.M.P.; Coelho, Catarina; Gil, Francisco; Cunha, Eugénia; Baptista, Isabel Poiares; Ferreira, Maria Teresa

Access to better health care anticipates that more medical devices can be found alongside skeletal remains. Those employed in oral rehabilitation, with available brands or batch/series, can prove useful in the identification process. A previous study in the Colecção de Esqueletos Identificados Século XXI described macroscopically the dental prostheses. An unusual case of a dental device with chromatic alterations demonstrated to require a more detailed analysis. The individual, a 53-year-old male, exhibited, at both arches, a fixed tooth-supported rehabilitation, with gold colouring classified initially as a gold-palladium alloy. Simultaneously, a green pigmentation deposit was observable in bone and prosthesis. This investigation aimed to verify the elemental composition of the dental prosthesis alloy. Elemental analysis was performed by X-ray fluorescence in two regions (labial surface of the prosthetic crown and the root surface of the lower right lateral incisor). Both the spectra and the qualitative results found higher levels of copper and aluminium, followed by nickel, iron, zinc, and manganese. No gold or palladium was detected. The most probable assumption is that a copper-aluminium alloy was used, as its elemental concentration corresponds to those measured in similar devices. Dental prostheses of copper-aluminium alloys have been made popular since the 1980s, particularly in the USA, Japan, and Eastern Europe. Apart from the biographical information, it was also known that the individual's place of birth was an Eastern European country, which highlighted the usefulness of this type of information when dealing with missing people cases.

2023Journal article

Open access

The unidentified skeletal collection of Capuchos Cemetery (Santarém) housed at the University of Coimbra

Publication . José, Andreia; Tomé, Laura; Coelho, Catarina; Cunha, E; Umbelino, Cláudia; Ferreira, Maria Teresa

The aim of this article is to present to the scientific and academic community a new osteological collection housed at the Department of Life Sciences from the University of Coimbra (Portugal), the Unidentified Skeletal Collection of the Capuchos Cemetery. The skeletons were collected from the same cemetery as those of the 21st Century Identified Skeletal Collection, however their identity is unknown. The collection is comprised of 73 individuals, of which 68 are adults of both sexes (34 females, 33 males, and one individual of unknown sex) and five are non-adult individuals. It is estimated that the majority of adult individuals have a European ancestry (n = 52; 76.47%). The skeletons are reasonably preserved, although several are incomplete (n = 8; 10.96%) as result of both taphonomic changes occurred during the burial, and also due to experimental researches performed (some of which destructive). Regarding the osteopathology, it was observed that the majority of adult individuals have pathological changes (n = 67; 98.53%), with degenerative pathology being the most frequent in the sample. In addition, 13 individuals (17.81%) exhibit medical devices and/or signs of surgical procedures.The Unidentified Skeletal Collection of the Capuchos Cemetery is an osteological collection that, although not containing individual biographical data, has contributed to teaching, research and development of new methods for Biological and Forensic Anthropology in subjects such as osteology, morphology, biological profile, paleopathology, and cremains

2021Journal article

Open access