# Dentistry is at least 13,000 years old



## Brian G Turner (Apr 8, 2017)

At least, in Italy:

Oldest tooth filling was made by an Ice Age dentist in Italy

Quote:

Scared of the dentist? Be glad you don’t live in the Ice Age. A pair of 13,000-year-old front teeth found in Italy contain the earliest known use of fillings – made out of bitumen.

The teeth, two upper central incisors belonging to one person, were discovered at the Riparo Fredian site near Lucca in northern Italy.

Each tooth has a large hole in the incisor’s surface that extends down into the pulp chamber deep in the tooth. “It is quite unusual, not something you see in normal teeth,” says Stephano Benazzi, an archaeologist at the University of Bologna.

Benazzi and his team used a variety of microscopic techniques to get a close look at the inside of the holes, and found a series of tiny horizontal marks on the walls that suggest they were cavities that had been drilled out and enlarged, likely by tiny stone tools.

The markings were similar to those Benazzi and his colleagues found in teeth from another site in Italy, dated to 14,000 year ago, that they determined were the first known example of dentistry in humans.

But these new teeth also have a new dental innovation. The holes contain traces of bitumen, with plant fibres and hairs embedded in it, which Benazzi thinks are evidence of prehistoric fillings.


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## Parson (Apr 8, 2017)

Parson shivers to think about someone digging out a cavity with stone tools and no novacane. Our ancestors were tough.... and smart.


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## Biskit (Apr 8, 2017)

Now I'm going to go and lie down, and try not to think about this.


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## Alexa (Apr 8, 2017)

Yep, we need something funny after seeing those teeth. Or just a funny tooth fairy.


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## Montero (Apr 8, 2017)

Regarding dentistry - I was told by my dentist that humans were gradually selecting out for wisdom teeth. Until there was good modern dentistry people with impacted wisdom teeth tended to die of infections and there was a gradual increase in the percentage of humans without wisdom teeth. But with modern dentistry the teeth get sorted and there is no dying out.

False teeth - corpse teeth were used to make false teeth and there was a glut of teeth on the market after Waterloo. The soldiers went "shopping" on the battlefield. The dentures made from the teeth of dead soldiers at Waterloo - BBC News


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## Parson (Apr 9, 2017)

Montero said:


> Regarding dentistry - I was told by my dentist that humans were gradually selecting out for wisdom teeth. Until there was good modern dentistry people with impacted wisdom teeth tended to die of infections and there was a gradual increase in the percentage of humans without wisdom teeth. But with modern dentistry the teeth get sorted and there is no dying out.
> 
> False teeth - corpse teeth were used to make false teeth and there was a glut of teeth on the market after Waterloo. The soldiers went "shopping" on the battlefield. The dentures made from the teeth of dead soldiers at Waterloo - BBC News



Okay, too much information! Ohhh!


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## Montero (Apr 9, 2017)

Meant to say earlier - cool post Brian. Filling teeth so long ago.


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## J Riff (Apr 9, 2017)

This I am gonna choose to not believe, there must be a different explanation. Like maybe torturing someone by drilling... no , nevermind, it was dentists and doctors all along.


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## Alexa (Apr 9, 2017)

But they didn't actually have dentists and doctors 13,000 years ago. Those teeth could be filled after they were pulled out.


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## Montero (Apr 9, 2017)

Why would anyone fill a tooth after it was pulled out?

The humans of 13,000 years ago were genetically the same as us. They could work things out like us. So, they could work out that a hole in a tooth hurt like heck and fill it in and see if that helped. They may have figured out the drilling from trying the same sort of principal as lancing an abscess somewhere else on their body. Bad stuff comes out, its more likely to get better. Put good stuff in (like bitumen with antiseptic plants) and that works better still.


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## mosaix (Apr 10, 2017)

Probably quite painful. But I would be surprised if they didn't have some kind of leaf or root that they chewed on to produce a narcotic, pain-reducing effect.


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## Montero (Apr 10, 2017)

I am now reminded of a story of my father's - as a teenager a dentist pulled one of his teeth with no pain relief at all. Said he rode home on the bus with his face like a throbbing football.


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