The first archaeological case of permanent teeth fusion in Europe

Teeth fusion is a developmental anomaly characterized by the union of two and, more rarely, three adjacent teeth. The fusion is caused by the physical pressure between two adjacent teeth during their development due to congenital, inherited, acquired or idiopathic factors. Nowadays, fused teeth occur with a frequency ratio between 0.1% and 1% in permanent dentition and 0.5% and 2.5% in primary dentition, and with an equal distribution between males and females. Fused teeth are a rare clinical finding, so there are not standardized clinical protocols and each case should be treated independently. This condition is rare in archaeological populations, likely due to taphonomic processes that cause the lack of information, as well as for the general low occurrence of the defect itself. In the European archaeological literature, there are no reports of two permanent fused teeth so far. Therefore, the present paper represents the first case study of two fused permanent incisors in the past Europe populations as this anomaly has been recognized in an adult man buried in the Longobard cemetery of Guidizzolo (VI–VII century A.D., northern Italy).