The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) has published in Data in Brief a valuable dataset comprising 712 measurements of deciduous teeth from 52 Spanish children belonging to the renowned Ratón Pérez Collection. Thanks to this pioneering citizen-science initiative, Spain now has one of the most extensive and rigorously documented resources worldwide for the study of modern childhood dentition.

The project, led by Marina Martínez de Pinillos together with Chitina Moreno-Torres and Leslea J. Hlusko, constitutes the first open reference collection to provide raw dental measurements of modern deciduous dentition, donated by individuals who supplied detailed biographical documentation collected under strict ethical criteria.

The dataset, freely available on the Zenodo repository, includes mesiodistal and buccolingual dimensions, as well as crown indices and crown areas of deciduous incisors, canines, and molars. “All measurements were taken following standardized odontometric protocols, ensuring data accuracy and comparability with both modern and fossil samples,” explains Martínez de Pinillos.

A unique resource for multiple disciplines
Created in 2014, the Ratón Pérez Collection currently houses more than 5,000 temporary teeth donated primarily by families from Burgos, whose strong involvement has been essential to the project’s success. The collection has been approved by the Bioethics Committee of the University of Burgos and guarantees full data anonymization.

This Collection is particularly valuable because of the contextual information accompanying each tooth, such as the donor’s age, sex, diet, gestational period, and geographical origin. “The combination of scope and high-quality documentation makes it an indispensable reference for research in anthropology, human evolution, pediatric dentistry, forensic sciences, bioarchaeology, and biomedicine, providing a robust and up-to-date comparative framework for studies on child populations,” highlights Martínez de Pinillos.

In anthropology and human evolution, it serves as an essential reference for comparing fossil teeth and studying evolutionary patterns within the genus Homo. In pediatric dentistry, it allows the establishment of current standards for children’s dental size and the detection of potential developmental anomalies. In forensic sciences, it contributes to improving age estimation and the identification of subadult individuals. In bioarchaeology and biomedicine, it provides a robust and ethically managed comparative framework for the analysis of past and present populations.

The complete dataset can be consulted and downloaded free of charge from Zenodo using the following identifier: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17255974