Comment on “hypoplastic area method for analyzing enamel hypoplasia” B.E. Ensor and J.D. Irish, American Journal of Physical Anthropology (1995) 98:507-517.
✍ Scribed by Blakey, Michael L.; Armelagos, George J.
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 34 KB
- Volume
- 102
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0002-9483
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The article by Ensor and Irish (1995) attributes to itself the first ''methodology to determine the amount [duration] of hypoplasia for comparing populations based on individuals,'' and states that ''no specific method for assessing the level of stress for comparative purposes has appeared in the literature'' (p. 507). This assertion is untrue. Their characterization of the work, which, in fact, broadly disseminated the first such methodology (Blakey and Armelagos, 1985) as one that, ''assumes uniformity between all defects and does not account for the range of variability in the duration of stress'' (p. 507) patently misrepresents our method.
Blakey and Armelagos (1985) utilize a method first developed by Blakey (1981) that involves measurements of both the incisal (onset) and cervical (cessation) aspects of human dental enamel hypoplasia. Many others have utilized aspects of this method. It analyses and graphically estimates duration, as well as the ages when hypoplastic episodes begin and end in each individual under study. So well was this new methodology appreciated by the authors, that the term ''methodology'' is listed as a Key Word in that publication. The first sentence of the abstract reads, ''The month of onset, duration, and incidence of dental enamel hypoplasia and hypocalcification was determined . . .' ' (p. 371). The y-axis of one of the publication's charts (p. 377) is labelled