Teeth are abundant in fossil sites because of their composition. Their growth follows very characteristic patterns and rhythms that provide a great deal of information about individuals and populations. The National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH), houses the Ratón Pérez Collection, the largest collection of baby teeth in the world, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary. We talked to Marina Martínez de Pinillos, head of the collection.
This is a collection of worldwide importance holding over 5000 milk teeth donated by boys and girls from all over Spain, to enable research in different scientific areas such as paleoanthropology, anthropology and forensics
Postdoctoral researcher within the ERC project “Tied2Teeth”, led by Leslea J. Hlusko at the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH). Since 2014, she has been in charge of the scientific coordination of the CENIEH project “Ratón Pérez Collection”, an initiative in which the CSIC Delegation in Galicia, through its Scientific Culture Unit, has participated since 2019.
This year, milk teeth will be collected in Burgos from September 25th to 29th, to continue expanding the RP Collection for the purposes of paleoanthropological and forensic research.