Stone Age hunter-gatherers tackled their cavities with a sharp tool and tar
Tooth find adds to evidence that some form of dentistry has existed for at least 14,000 years
By Bruce Bower
Stone Age dentists didn’t drill and fill cavities. They scraped and coated them.
Two teeth from a person who lived in what’s now northern Italy between 13,000 and 12,740 years ago bear signs of someone having scoured and removed infected soft, inner tissue. The treated area was then covered with bitumen, a sticky, tarlike substance Stone Age folks used to attach stone tools to handles (SN Online: 12/12/08), says a team led by biological anthropologists Gregorio Oxilia and Stefano Benazzi, both of the University of Bologna in Italy.