Dental News - Evidence of prehistoric dentistry found in Neanderthal teeth

Dental Tribune International

Mon. 3. July 2017

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LAWRENCE, Kan., USA: A new study led by a University of Kansas researcher has discovered multiple toothpick grooves on teeth and signs of other dental manipulations by a Neanderthal of 130,000 years ago. These findings are evidence of a kind of prehistoric dentistry and form of self-treatment to relieve dental discomfort.

David Frayer, Professor Emeritus of Biological Anthropology, and his research team at the university analyzed four isolated, but associated mandibular teeth on the left side of the Neanderthal’s mouth, which were found at the Krapina site in Croatia. The teeth were discovered more than 100 years ago at the site, which was originally excavated between 1899 and 1905. In recent years, Frayer and co-author Dr. Davorka Radovčić have re-examined many of the items retrieved. In this case, they analyzed the teeth under a light microscope to document occlusal wear, toothpick groove formation, dentin scratches and antemortem lingual enamel fractures.

“As a package, this fits together as a dental problem that the Neanderthal was having and was trying to presumably treat itself, with the toothpick grooves, the breaks and also with the scratches on the premolar,” said Frayer. “It was an interesting connection or collection of phenomena that fit together in a way that we would expect a modern human to do. Everybody has had dental pain, and they know what it’s like to have a problem with an impacted tooth.”

The features of the examined teeth are associated with several kinds of dental manipulations. Mostly because the damage to the teeth was on the lingual aspect and at different angles, the researchers ruled out something having happened to the teeth after the Neanderthal died. Past research in the fossil record has identified toothpick grooves going back almost 2 million years, Frayer explained. The researchers did not identify what the Neanderthal would have used to produce the grooves, but it could possibly have been bone or grass stems.

“It’s maybe not surprising that a Neanderthal did this, but as far as I know, there’s no specimen that combines all of this together into a pattern that would indicate he or she was trying to presumably self-treat this eruption problem,” he added.

The study, titled “Prehistoric dentistry? P4 rotation, partial M3 impaction, toothpick grooves and other signs of manipulation in Krapina Dental Person 20,” was published in the June issue of the Bulletin of the International Association for Paleodontology.

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