X-ray based imaging and 3d reconstruction of dental pathologies on the example of palaeoanthropological finding

Findings from Bronze Age burials of Shengavit settlement have become a source of multiple studies referred to anthropological, and especially odontological, research based on 3d imaging and image processing techniques. The currently presented case is an example of palaeopathological analysis of bone tissue resorption caused by complications of dental pathologies. Thus by analogy with diagnostic procedures in clinical dentistry, conventional x-ray based cone-beam tomographic scanning have been applied and have shown its effectiveness as a study method. Through CBCT imaging we managed to reveal a hidden pathological process in the body of the studied semi-mandible fragment, though initially another pathological area located on the same finding was planned to be studied. Application of micro-computed tomography has improved analytical, or diagnostic, part of the current palaepathological study. It has brought to finding unusual morphological features hypothetically causing bone resorption as a complication of dental pathological conditions. However our intention to obtain 3d reconstructions as evidence supporting the most likely version required several attempts to correct image processing in line with the increase of imaging resolution. © Authors 2021. CC BY 4.0 License.