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Abstract

Through the morphological research of the non-metric traits in prehistoric populations of Brazil (Lagoa Santa and constructors of the shell mounds of Cabeçuda and Forte Marechal Luz), the following results were obtained:

1. The frequency of the tori mandibularis and auditivi in the primitive population of Lagoa Santa was very low, respectively 0,64% and 0,54%, with the absence of the tori maxillaris and palatinus.

2. The frequency of the tori mandibularis and auditivi in the population of the shell mound of Cabeçuda are statistically significant. Both sexes together present a percentage of 30% for the two traits. The torus maxillaris presents a low percentage (5,05), being the torus palatinus absent.

3. The tori mandibularis and maxillaris happen concomitantly in only 2,02% of the exhumed specimens of the shell mound of Cabeçuda.

4. The frequency of the tori mandibularis and auditivi in the male specimens exhumed in the shell mound of Forte Marechal Luz are respectively 27,78% and 11, 11%. These traits were not observed in the female series. The tori maxillaris and palatinus do not exist in the male and female series.

5. The tori mandibularis and auditivi are not co-related in the specimens of the population at the shell mound of Fort Marechal Luz.

6. The tori mandibularis, maxillaris and auditivi were not observed in skeletons of children, neither in the population of Lagoa Santa nor in the shell mounds populations of Forte Marechal Luz and Cabeçuda. Only in one case of a female adolescent of approximately 13 years old, which skeleton was exhumed in the Cabeçuda archeological area the torus mandibularis was registered.

7. There is no correlation between the intensity of dental corrosion and the ocurrence of the tori mandibularis, maxillaris and auditivi in the three populations in study.

8. The torus mandibularis in the population of the shell mound of Cabeçuda is more developed and of bigger extention than the ones observed in the populations of Forte Marechal Luz and Lagoa Santa.

9. The frequency of torus mandibularis, maxillaris, associated with the morphoscopic and morphometric traditional studies, reinforce the great genetic distances between the inhabitante of Lagoa Santa (terminal paleoindian) and the constructors of the shell mounds of the Brasilian southern coast.

10. The Anthropological researches seem to indicate for the constructors of the shell mounds of Cabeçuda and Forte Marechal Luz, distinct and contemporaneous anthropophisical entities, comparable to the morphologies of the pre-deforming Patagonia (previous to the appearance of the intentional deformation of the indian skulls). Consequently, the frequencies of the tori mandibularis and auditivi in those populations may indicate a genetic relationship and ambiental similarity.

11. The incidence of the torus auditivi in the series of skulls found in the shell mounds of Forte Marechal Luz and Cabeçuda, have shown, in relation to the trait, a vivid male expression. This lesion seems a bone's response to a soft-tissue tumor (ear cholesteatoma).