Martin D. Levin, DMD, Adjunct Professor of Endodontics at the University of Pennsylvania (left), Doug Owsley PhD, Physical Anthropologist and Division Head of Physical Anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (right) and Barry Pass, a professor at Howard University (background), examine a 3D scan of the boy’s mandible (mounted in the foreground) in 2014. (Photo by Bruce Dale)

The first English settlement in North America was established in 1607, at Jamestown, VA. The first casualty in Jamestown was a 15yo boy, specimen JR1225B, the apparent victim of an Indian attack. His excavated remains show an arrow head at the thigh, broken left collarbone, and anterior mandible with Ellis Type III fracture of mandibular left central incisor, with significant periapical pathological bone resorption. Drs. Levin and Pass have been contributing to a multidisciplinary study to elucidate the nature and chronology of odontogenic cause(s) of mandibular pathosis evident in JR1225B skeletal remains, and analyze contents of the root canal of a fractured mandibular left central incisor to assist assembling a corporeal and physiological history.

Please find links to news articles about Drs. Levin and Pass’s research at Jamestown:

Virginia Commonwealth University News: How a VCU-based collaboration is reshaping our view of early Jamestown

Carestream Dental: Discovering the Past with Advanced Technology

Williamsburg Yorktown Daily