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The following link displays a uniform groove across the buccal edge of some donkey teeth, from a late-antique site in southern Italy. Any thoughts? http://www.alexandriaarchive.org/icaz/icazForum/viewtopic.php?t=926 I suspect it has something to do with calculus deposition along the gum line (the mandible has not survived in this case - well it's in hundreds of scrappy, tiny pieces), which has aggravated some caries to erode away part of the tooth. The line extends around both the buccal and lingual edges. Still, the line had be thinking about enamel hypoplasia in equids (although the uniform nature of the line here rules that out for this case). Does anyone know of cases of enamel hypoplasia in equids, or is the situation much like in bovids where this condition is difficult to see macroscopically because of the cementum layer covering the tooth (not to mention calculus depostion which can also obscure things - and calculus seems to be common among many bovids - at least most of the ones I've seen from Greek and Roman sites around the Mediterranean). Thanks Michael MacKinnon -------------------------------------------- Dr. Michael MacKinnon Department of Anthropology University of Winnipeg 515 Portage Avenue Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 Canada phone: (204) 786-9752 e-mail: [log in to unmask]