The tooth was unearthed from Chagyrskaya Cave in Siberia and pushes back the record of primitive dentistry by more than 40,000 years
NEW DELHI: The next time you dread a visit to the dentist, consider the newly-discovered fact that the instinct to do something about a rotten tooth goes back at least 59,000 years, and it was not modern humans who first acted on it.
A newly published study has found the oldest known evidence of dental treatment in human history, in the form of a Neanderthal molar tooth with a hole deliberately drilled into it using a stone tool.
The tooth was unearthed from Chagyrskaya Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia and pushes back the record of primitive dentistry by more than 40,000 years.
Crucially, it is also the first time any evidence of tooth surgery has been found in a species other than our own.
A STONE TOOL AND A ROTTEN TOOTH
The molar was discovered in 2016, but its significance was only recently recognised.
Under microscopic analysis, the tooth revealed a large cavity drilled from its chewing surface all the way down to the pulp chamber near the roots, which is the inner core where nerves and blood vessels sit.
The drilling was found to be consistent with deliberate removal of infected tissue.
The operation would have required a sharp stone tool, a few centimetres long and very thin, twirled between the fingertips of whoever was performing it. Alongside the drilled hole, researchers also found a groove worn into the tooth by wooden toothpicks, almost certainly used to manage the pain of the ongoing infection.
For the Neanderthal who underwent the tooth treatment, the experience would have required understanding that tooth decay was the source of the pain, and that drilling it out could bring relief.
“This new find at Chagyrskaya is clearly evidence of a deliberate, planned intervention in an effort to relieve pain,” Bruce Hardy, an anthropologist at Kenyon College, who was not involved in the study, told Science News.
SMARTER THAN WE THOUGHT
The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that Neanderthals were far more sophisticated than the dim, brutish image that once dominated popular culture.
Previous research had shown they cared for their injured, made fire, and crafted complex tools. The dental procedure could not have been self-administered, meaning someone else in the group had to perform it, pointing to cooperation, trust, and shared problem-solving.
“Given our increasing understanding of Neanderthals’ cognitive abilities, dentistry is not really that surprising,” said Hardy. The discovery therefore suggests both the manual dexterity and cognitive capability needed for such an operation, said archaeologist John Olsen of the University of Arizona.
Agencies