If you think your experience with the dentist is scary , just think about how bad the caveman dentist ’s office would have been . There ’d be no painkiller , no drills , and the fillings would be made from tar and plant fiber . And god , what would the inept small talk be like ?

Scientists find out 13000 - year - quondam human teeth in a mountainous part of Tuscany , Italy — but someone had clearly been messing with these chompers . Through microscopy , it was clear they had been modified in some mode , with splintering and residuum of abnormal plant fibers and hair’s-breadth on the inside of the teeth . They may have total from someone who ’d gossip the prehistoric dentist .

The teeth were canines and incisor , and the psychoanalysis consist of an array of tools you ’d believably prefer your dentist not use , like scanning negatron microscopes , microCT scanners ( which are basically research laboratory versions of hospital CAT scanners ) and other imaging techniques . The research worker radiocarbon date the tooth , meaning they looked at the amounts of trace radioactive carbon to see how old they were . And using their microscope , they identified the fibers inside the tooth as belike being put there while the caveperson was still alive .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

Oldest tooth filling was made by an Ice Age dentist in Italyhttps://t.co/zRjMy1U1jIpic.twitter.com/qXcY5CHO7J

— New Scientist ( @newscientist)April 7 , 2017

“ The internal surface modifications to the pulp magazine cavities , in addition to the presence of bitumen and organic fibre , is an unusual natural event among Late Upper Paleolithic hunter - gatherer , ” or the tardy stone age , the author write inthe paperpublished last month in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology , “ that begs further explanation . ”

William Duplessie

So , was this curative odontology ? Maybe not — after all , mint of these neolithic mathematical group modify their teeth for non - health link reason , write the author . And there could be lots of agency chip terminate up on teeth . But the presence of bitumen , a form of natural tar and antiseptic , indicated to the scientists that the ooze dressing might have been medicative .

And if it was medicative , it would likely be the earliest account of tooth satiate for sanative intention bya longshot , the source say . ecumenical tooth modifications had plausibly been around for athousand yearsprior to these pick , though , reportsNew Scientist .

https://gizmodo.com/details-of-14-000-year-old-dentistry-make-me-want-to-cr-1718232086

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Just be glad that your trips to the tooth doctor do n’t want someone chip off aside at the inside of your teeth and overgorge tar into the unmedicated hole .

[ The Journal of Physical AnthropologyviaNew Scientist ]

DentistryScienceStone Age

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