Dental Mutilation: an Overall View of the Esthetics of the Smile

Abstract

The corporal mutilations have an anthropological and social value, and its study serves to understand the past and presenthuman behaviour from geographic, cultural, religious and aesthetic a point of view. The dental mutilation or dental decoration is a practice widely studied in primitive and present populations. Although, by their frequency, the dental mutilations are more known in Meso-america and sub-Saharan Africa, is historical certainty of dental mutilations throughout all over the world. Bibliographically, the investigators have given diverse explanations to the fact of the intentional modifications of the teeth: like ornamentation, like tribal identifiers, indicators of social status, initiation rites, or explanation of the cosmovision of the last and present populations (teriomorphism versus anthropomorphism).