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While flesh and bone dissolve into dust, teeth endure. Among all skeletal components, tooth enamel stands out as the toughest and densest. Because of this, it often serves as the final trace of an organism.
An ancient tooth holds more than just clues about its owner’s identity. It can offer a glimpse into a vanished era. Teeth reveal details about an individual's lifestyle, diet, and environment, as well as the pollutants, diseases, and treatments they may have encountered. For our forebears, teeth were not only tools but a vital defense against the world around them. The secrets they hold are vast.
10. The Authentic Paleo Diet
The Paleo Diet is currently a popular trend, but does this high-protein, low-carb approach truly reflect the diet of our ancestors? The discovery of decayed teeth among Paleolithic people in Morocco’s Grotte des Pigeons suggests otherwise. The cause? Sweet acorns. These teeth, dating back 15,000 years, reveal that humans were indulging in carbs long before the rise of agriculture.
More than half of the individuals from Grotte des Pigeons display evidence of tooth decay. Nearly all had cavities, with only three exceptions. Previously, experts believed that cavities were a byproduct of agriculture, emerging around 10,000 years ago.
It’s possible that the people of Grotte des Pigeons were an outlier, as earlier studies indicated dental issues in pre-agricultural societies ranging from 0 to 14 percent. Interestingly, more than 90 percent of the Grotte des Pigeons remains lack incisors, leading many to speculate they were removed as part of a ritual.
9. The Enigmatic Ape of the Ur-Rhine
In 2017, researchers from the Museum of Natural History in Mainz, Germany, revealed the discovery of an ancient hominid tooth that could challenge the out-of-Africa theory of human evolution.
The tooth, estimated to be 9.7 million years old, was found in the ancient Rhine riverbed and is believed to have belonged to an Australopithecus-like species, similar to the famous “Lucy.” The site, known as “Ur-Rhine,” has proven to be a rich source of fossils, with 25 new species identified over the past 15 years.
So far, two mystery ape teeth—an upper left canine and an upper left molar—have been discovered at this 10-million-year-old sediment level. The teeth, initially uncovered in September 2016, puzzled researchers, prompting them to withhold their findings for a full year.
The potential implications are vast. Similar species are known to have existed in Africa, but these southern counterparts wouldn’t emerge for another four million years.
8. The Secrets Beneath the Gunk
Earlier this year, researchers analyzed dental plaque from Belgium’s Spy Cave and Spain’s El Sidron site, offering new insights into the lost world of Neanderthals. The study uncovered that Belgian Neanderthals had a diet largely composed of meat from wild sheep and woolly rhinoceroses.
However, this wasn’t the case everywhere in the Neanderthal world. Teeth found at El Sidron suggested a more plant-based forest diet, including mushrooms, pine nuts, and moss.
Shifts in diet were found to correlate with distinct communities of microorganisms in the dental plaque. Remarkably, one specimen from El Sidron showed signs of self-medication for a tooth abscess and a parasite known as Microsporidia.
In another significant find, researchers identified poplar bark, a natural aspirin source, in the tooth gunk of a Spanish Neanderthal. The presence of Penicillium in the dental calculus suggests the individual might have intentionally consumed rotting, moldy plants to benefit from their natural antibiotic properties, the precursor to penicillin.
7. The Pollution of Prehistory
In 2015, researchers uncovered one of the earliest signs of human-made pollution within 400,000-year-old dental plaque. Analyzing remains from Qesem Cave in Israel, they found ancient tartar that contained traces of respiratory irritants, most notably charcoal from indoor fires.
Qesem Cave is one of the earliest known sites for the regular use of fire. Evidence such as blackened soil, charred bones, and a 300,000-year-old hearth highlights the cave’s longstanding association with controlled fires.
Most researchers believe that humans began using fire approximately one million years ago. However, the precise moment when fire was first used for cooking has remained an enduring mystery.
The evidence at Qesem Cave suggests that the practice of using fire for daily activities, including meat preparation, has been ongoing for at least 300,000 years. The teeth show signs of damage from smoke inhalation, a byproduct of the indoor fires. Progress, it seems, is a double-edged sword. As technology advanced, the air quality in Qesem deteriorated. Fire came with a cost.
6. The Mystery of Hobbit Teeth
In 2003, the remains of a small hominid from the Indonesian island of Flores, dated to 18,000 years ago, baffled anthropologists. Was this ‘hobbit’ a deformed human, or was Homo floresiensis a previously unknown species? The answer lay in the teeth. In 2015, researchers concluded that the hobbit’s teeth closely resembled those of Homo erectus.
Experts theorized that Homo floresiensis evolved from larger-bodied populations of H. erectus from Java. It’s likely they arrived on the island following a cataclysmic event, such as a tsunami.
Cut off from the mainland on Flores, the modern-sized H. erectus evolved into a case of extreme island dwarfism. Between 95,000 and 17,000 years ago, these hobbits saw their average height shrink from 165 centimeters (5'5") to just 110 centimeters (3'7"), while their brain volume dropped from 860 cubic centimeters (52 in) to 426 cubic centimeters (26 in).
These small, short hominids persisted well into the age of modern humans and could have been the last non-human hominids to vanish, much like the dodo bird.
5. The Chompers of Chaucer’s Children
In 2016, scientists utilized 3-D microscopic imaging to investigate the diet of English children who lived between the 11th and 16th centuries. The teeth of 44 children, aged one to eight, were recovered from burials at St. Gregory’s Priory and Cemetery in Canterbury.
The biological anthropologists determined that the children were typically weaned by their first year. For the first few years, their diet primarily consisted of simple foods—pap, a basic porridge, and a bread-based soup known as panada.
Fruits and vegetables were noticeably missing from the diet of these medieval children. While their food was quite plain, the absence of processed sugars meant far less tooth decay compared to what is seen in modern children.
One of the most fascinating findings was that there was no distinction in the diets of children from different social classes. While adult diets were influenced by social status, this was not the case for children. Poor children consumed the same food as those from wealthier families.
4. Prehuman Dentistry
In 2015, researchers uncovered evidence of Neanderthal dental care dating back 130,000 years. Using teeth from the Krapina archaeological site in Croatia, experts found multiple teeth—including premolars and M3 molars—that showed signs of alteration.
Grooves, enamel cracks, and scratches pointed to the use of a primitive toothpick-like tool made from bone or grass. Experts theorize that the uneven fractures on the tongue side of the teeth indicate that the dental work was done before the individual’s death.
The discovery of dental treatments at Krapina aligns with other remarkable finds from the site, such as jewelry made from eagle talons. This discovery of early human ornamentation challenged the long-held belief that Neanderthals were devoid of art and incapable of symbolic thinking.
We now understand that Neanderthals reacted similarly to modern humans when confronted with objects of beauty or dental discomfort.
3. Mediterranean Missing Link
In 2017, scientists from the University of Tübingen in Germany revealed that they had uncovered the missing link, not in Africa, but in the Mediterranean. The fossil, dated to 7.2 million years ago, belonged to Graecopithecus freybergi, an ape-like species believed to be the shared ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.
The specimen, consisting of a single tooth and a lower jawbone, was found in Greece and Bulgaria, and it is several hundred thousand years older than similar species from East Africa—the traditional “cradle of humanity.”
The teeth of Graecopithecus provide evidence for its role as the missing link. While great apes typically have two to three diverging roots, the roots of Graecopithecus converge and fuse, much like those of humans and early hominids.
This new dating suggests that the divergence between humans and chimpanzees may have occurred in the Mediterranean, not Africa. The changing climate in Europe, which created grasslands, may have driven the evolution of bipedalism and human-like molars with thick enamel and wide bases.
2. Pompeii’s Lovely Teeth
In 2015, scientists used CT scans to examine the plaster casts of those who perished in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. They were thrilled to find that despite the lack of modern dental care, the people of Pompeii had notably healthy teeth. Their diet, rich in vegetables and fruit fibers, lacked refined sugars, and they might have been exposed to high levels of fluorine in both the air and water due to their volcanic surroundings.
The plaster casting technique for preserving Pompeii’s victims was developed by archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli in 1886. This innovation made it possible to handle and transport the remains without risking their deterioration.
Unfortunately, Fiorelli’s method only allowed for the study of the external features of the casts. For nearly 1,900 years, the true details of the Pompeii victims remained hidden beneath layers of ash and plaster. It wasn’t until the use of CT scans that a new perspective into their world was revealed.
1. Daoxian Teeth
In 2015, a groundbreaking discovery of modern human teeth in China began to reshape our understanding of human migration. Found in Fuyan Cave, Dao County, the 47 teeth date back at least 80,000 years—well before humans were believed to have left Africa, pushing back the timeline by over 20,000 years.
The teeth were uncovered deep within a cave alongside the remains of various other species, including the extinct giant panda. Since no stone tools were found with the teeth, experts suspect the remains were left behind by a predator.
The researchers used calcite deposits around the teeth to determine their age, as the teeth themselves were too ancient for carbon dating. This discovery challenges the widely accepted 'out-of-Africa' theory, which suggests that humans migrated from Africa between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago. It raises questions about the timing and frequency of migrations during our early history.
