1982 (J. S. Handler, R. S. Corruccini, and R. Mutaw) “Tooth Mutilation in the Caribbean: Evidence from a Slave Burial Population in Barbados.” Journal of Human Evolution 11: 297-313.
Dental mutilation on slave burials excavated from a sugar plantation cemetery on the Caribbean island of Barbados reflects on the question of African slaves and their New World born slave descendants perpetuating this widespread African practice in the New World. Physical anthropological and ethnohistorical evidence from Barbados and other areas leads to the tentative conclusion that dental mutilation (and body scarification) disappeared among New World Black slaves. Reasons relating to adaptive responses to the institution of slavery, and changes in esthetic values as a result of the creolization process, are offered to help account for this disappearance.