\n<\/p>\n
Neanderthals used stone drills to treat cavities almost 60,000 years ago in what is the earliest known evidence of dental treatment.<\/p>\n
The single molar, which was unearthed in a cave in southern Siberia, features a deep hole that appears to have been created using a sharp, thin stone tool during the lifetime of the tooth\u2019s owner.<\/p>\n
While the prospect of stone age root canal treatment may be excruciating to even contemplate, archaeologists say the discovery provides remarkable insights into Neanderthals\u2019 advanced behaviours \u2013 and possibly their gritty disposition.<\/p>\n
Dr Kseniya Kolobova, an archaeologist at the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk, said: \u201cThis discovery powerfully reinforces the now well-supported view that Neanderthals were not the brutish, inferior cousins of outdated stereotypes but a sophisticated human population with complex cognitive and cultural capacities. [It] adds an entirely new dimension \u2013 invasive medical treatment \u2013 to the growing list of advanced Neanderthal behaviours.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the first time dental drilling has been demonstrated outside of Homo sapiens, and it is the oldest example of such behaviour by more than 40,000 years.<\/p>\n
A dental professor, who reviewed images of the tooth but was not part of the research, rated the Neanderthal\u2019s work as \u201ca decent job\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I was marking this for a dental student, I wouldn\u2019t give it an A, but given the circumstances it\u2019s pretty impressive,\u201d said Justin Durham, a professor of orofacial pain at Newcastle University and the British Dental Association\u2019s chief scientific adviser.<\/p>\n
The smoothed edges of the drilled cavity, and wear patterns inside it, suggested the individual survived and continued to chew with the tooth for some time after the procedure.<\/p>\n
The tooth, which has been dated to be 59,000 years old, was found in Chagyrskaya, where the remains of Neanderthals and thousands of stone tools have been excavated. The lower molar features a deep hole in the centre of the tooth extending into the pulp cavity. Microscopic X-ray imaging revealed changes in mineralisation that indicated severe tooth decay.<\/p>\n
The researchers conducted experiments on three modern human teeth to demonstrate that a hole of the same shape and same patterns of microscopic grooves could be created by manually rotating a narrow, elongated tool made from local jasper, between two fingers. Penetrating the dentin using this approach took between 35 and 50 minutes of continuous work, according to the research published in the journal PLOS One.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been excruciating,\u201d said Kolobova.<\/p>\n
Durham said the intervention, which he described as \u201cthe beginnings of a root canal treatment\u201d, was likely to have relieved pain in the short term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tooth is a closed box. So the pressure [that builds up during an infection] is what causes the intense, painful, pounding, pulsing toothache that people are familiar with,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you put a big hole in the tooth like this Neanderthal dentist did, it would relieve that pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to use diamond-tipped burrs running at greater than 40,000 revolutions a minute to get through the outer surface of the tooth in modern-day dentistry,\u201d Durham added. \u201cSo this is quite a phenomenal achievement, which is why I take my hat off to the Neanderthal who did it. It really does demonstrate high-level thinking and high-level skills as far as I\u2019m concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n
The patient appeared to survive for some time, but, left unfilled, the tooth would have been vulnerable to chronic infection.<\/p>\n
Previous evidence of Neanderthals caring for the sick and vulnerable group members includes the discovery of an adult man with a withered arm and deformities in both legs and a child with Down\u2019s syndrome who survived until at least the age of six. The latest discovery reveals not only compassion, but an impressive level of self-control by the patient.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat struck me, and continues to strike me, is what an incredibly strong-willed person this Neanderthal must have been,\u201d said Dr Lydia Zotkina, an archaeologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences and co-author. \u201cThey must have surely understood that although the pain of the procedure was greater than the pain of the inflammation, it was only temporary and had to be endured.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, every time I go to the dentist, I think about that guy,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Neanderthals used stone drills to treat cavities almost 60,000 years ago in what is the earliest known evidence of dental treatment. The single molar, which was unearthed in a cave in southern Siberia, features a deep hole that appears to have been created using a sharp, thin stone tool during the lifetime of the tooth\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[24508,13183,4453,9302,3415,10098,4339,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-49385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cavities","9":"tag-drills","10":"tag-neanderthals","11":"tag-stone","12":"tag-suggests","13":"tag-tooth","14":"tag-treat","15":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}