ArticleFEMS microbes2022
Understanding the microbial biogeography of ancient human dentitions to guide study design and interpretation.
Article in FEMS microbes, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Lifestyle Impacts the Oral Microbiome of Classical and Post-Classical Societies in Italy.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- The Oral Microbiome of King Richard III of England.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- Host Traits Impact the Outcome of Metagenomic Library Preparation From Dental Calculus Samples Across Diverse Mammals.Molecular ecology resources · 2025Article
- Ancient DNA and biomarkers from artefacts: insights into technology and cultural practices in Neolithic Europe.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Streptococcus abundance and oral site tropism in humans and non-human primates reflects host and lifestyle differences.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Article
- A Journey into the Evolution of Human Host-Oral Microbiome Relationship through Ancient Dental Calculus: A Scoping Review.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- Palaeoproteomic investigation of an ancient human skeleton with abnormal deposition of dental calculus.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Ancient dental calculus preserves signatures of biofilm succession and interindividual variation independent of dental pathology.PNAS nexus · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 6 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The oral cavity is a heterogeneous environment, varying in factors such as pH, oxygen levels, and salivary flow. These factors affect the microbial community composition and distribution of species in dental plaque, but it is not known how well these patterns are reflected in archaeological dental calculus. In most archaeological studies, a single sample of dental calculus is studied per individual and is assumed to represent the entire oral cavity. However, it is not known if this sampling strategy introduces biases into studies of the ancient oral microbiome. Here, we present the results of a shotgun metagenomic study of a dense sampling of dental calculus from four Chalcolithic individuals from the southeast Iberian peninsula (ca. 4500-5000 BP). Interindividual differences in microbial composition are found to be much larger than intraindividual differences, indicating that a single sample can indeed represent an individual in most cases. However, there are minor spatial patterns in species distribution within the oral cavity that should be taken into account when designing a study or interpreting results. Finally, we show that plant DNA identified in the samples is likely of postmortem origin, demonstrating the importance of including environmental controls or additional lines of biomolecular evidence in dietary interpretations.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.