Even Neanderthals knew how to remove tooth decay

The hole suggests that Neanderthals knew or tried to treat teeth damaged by caries.

This is what can be concluded from the deep hole that someone apparently made on purpose in a molar in the lower jaw of a Neanderthal. There could have been caries in the hole, i.e. tooth decay.

A tooth found in Siberia from Russia in 2016. Recent research considers it the earliest evidence of dental care, as the tooth is almost 60,000 years old.

Evidence of modern dental care has until now been from a much later period, i.e. about 14,000 years ago. In northern Italy, excavations similarly found a molar with traces of handling.

According to the researchers, the hole in the now-examined molar shows that Neanderthals realized that a painful toothache could be treated. It shows that they had the fine motor skills needed to work on a tooth.

The tooth was apparently drilled with a small stone tool.

It may have been jasper, known as a gemstone. It has been used in drill bits for thousands of years before the beginning of time. Tools made of jasper were found in the same cave as the tooth, he says New Scientist -magazine.

The treatment of the tooth shows that Neanderthals had a fairly developed understanding of decaying treatments, states The New York Timesissa professor emeritus John Olsenwho is one of the authors of the recent study. Olsen has worked at the University of Arizona.

The research was PlosOnein the journal. Research release tells about the discovery in detail.

The Neanderthalinmist there has been little evidence of dental care until now.

In the ancient communities of modern humans, it has been found that caries increased thousands of years ago when hunter-gatherers switched to farming. The explanation may be that some bacteria in the mouth convert carbohydrates into acids, which increased the stress on the teeth.

The microscope revealed that minerals have been dissolved from the surface of this tooth as a result of acid attacks.

Long the tooth was studied, among other things, by comparing the traces on it with the current teeth of modern humans, which were processed with tools in different ways.

There is a hole on the surface of the tooth, the size of which varies from a good two millimeters to four millimeters. The depth is more than two millimeters. There was caries at the base where the gum would have reached. In the same place, there were also signs of digging between the teeth.

Based on the marks on the tooth, the wearer of the tooth still chewed after the molar had been worked on. So the treatment seems to have been successful in that sense.

The conclusion about dental care is based on one molar. It cannot be interpreted whether someone else took care of the tooth or whether a cousin of a modern person who suffered from a toothache had to remove the caries himself.

Maybe someone besides the one giving the treatment was needed to hold the patient’s head in place. The touch was barely felt.

Neanderthal man appeared about 400,000 years ago. They disappeared about 40,000 years ago.

There is evidence that Neanderthals were self-grooming. They could eat plants that had medicinal effects.

They also take care of others, such as the sick and the elderly. It has been concluded that at least one of the Neanderthals the child was cared for in the communitywho had Down syndrome.