Ancient Tooth Shows Oldest Signs of Dentistry

Greetings, ATS!

I love reading about people who lived their lives millenia ago....there's something powerfully intriguing about ancient cultures.

Anyway, found this wonderful story and thought I'd share with my friends.

Italian researchers believe they have discovered the oldest dental filling -- a beeswax cap applied to a left canine tooth about 6,500 years ago.
The filling was discovered by chance as Claudio Tuniz, Federico Bernardini and colleagues at the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste used a fossilized jaw bone to test new X-ray imaging equipment.
Found early last century embedded on the wall of a karstic cave near the village of Lonche, in what is now Slovenia, the bone most likely belonged a 24–30-year-old individual.

The ingenuity of ancient people never fails to amaze me. I'll admit it, I've got this preconceived notion that older civilizations were somehow.....less intelligent than we are today. Completely erroneous, of course, which is why I love reading these articles. It reminds me that our forefathers were as adaptable as we are today....perhaps even more so. It also is a connection that I can understand, and that's an awesome feeling.

Enjoy!

This really doesn't surprise me. I've had cavities in the past and often considered sticking some blue-tac in there or something till I can afford to go to the dentist.

ETA: Thanks for posting, snf of course!

Perhaps the oldest filling but not the oldest denistry by far

Earliest dentistry

Here we describe eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Pakistan that dates from 7,500–9,000 years ago. These findings provide evidence for a long tradition of a type of proto-dentistry in an early farming culture.

Unfortunately the link is to a pay site but you can read the abstract

reply to post by Hanslune


Thanks for the link!

reply to post by smyleegrl


I love this too. I also love reading about ancient cultures and their ingenuity. S+F

Thank you for posting the link.