2024’s top ten – child’s tooth from a stone box in Structure Thirty-Four

Another of the season’s most surprising finds – a child’s milk tooth from one of the orthostatic boxes in Structure Thirty-Four.

We’ve found teeth at the Ness before – well, three.

An adult incisor in the midden/demolition deposits in Structure Ten was found in 2012, while, in 2014, two adult teeth were found within the Iron Age remodelling of the Trench T midden mound. These, however, don’t necessarily relate to the handling of human remains or the dead. Teeth can fall out – or be knocked out!

Thirty-Four’s enigmatic orthostatic boxes produced deposits of animal bone and pottery earlier in the season. Had this tiny tooth been inserted into one for a reason? Or was its inclusion accidental?

In modern times, deciduous molars are replaced between the ages of nine and twelve, so that gives us a ball-park figure for the Structure Thirty-Four tooth.

While the youngster’s molar could indicate children were present on site, it’s equally possible that the tooth was in the midden brought in to infill the structure. We hope our ongoing post-excavation work will help shed light on this tiny ecofact. Isotope analysis, for example, measures the ratios of different chemical isotopes in bones or teeth, which can then be used to investigate an individual’s diet and the environment they grew up in.