Labret Use
While researching my MA thesis, I came across one burial whose mandible showed evidence of having worn two labrets during his lifetime. Ethnographers and travelers decades ago had noted that people who wore this kind of ornament often had teeth that were flattened and polished in the areas where the jewelry contacted them. Jerome Cybulski documented it in the archaeological literature with collections from British Columbia. Modern people with labret piercings also provide another source of information for learning about the effects and meaning of this body modification.
Individual 2071 from the Solcor 3 cemetery in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, had two labrets in his tomb and abrasion facets on both his mandibular canines. A short paper I wrote about this was published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology in 2003.
I am currently researching another population from prehistoric Chile where a number of individuals were buried with labrets.
Tiwanaku Ceramic showing an individual wearing a labret.