Dig
uncovers ancient roots of dentistry
Tooth drilling goes back 9,000 years in Pakistan, scientists say
Researchers conduct a re-enactment of the method presumably used
in Pakistan to drill teeth 9,000 years ago. A flint drilling tip
was mounted in a rod holder and attached to a bowstring. In less
than a minute, the technique produced holes similar to those found
in prehistoric teeth. One important difference: The Neolithic
dentists performed their operations on living humans.
Associated Press
Updated: 12:59 p.m. ET April 5, 2006
WASHINGTON - Proving prehistoric man's ingenuity and ability to
withstand and inflict excruciating pain, researchers have found
that dental drilling dates back 9,000 years.
Primitive
dentists drilled nearly perfect holes into live but undoubtedly
unhappy patients between 5500 B.C. and 7000 B.C., an article in
Thursday's issue of the journal Nature reports. Researchers carbon-dated
at least nine skulls with 11 drill holes found in a Pakistan graveyard.
That
means dentistry is at least 4,000 years older than first thought
— and far older than the useful invention of anesthesia.
This
was no mere tooth tinkering. The drilled teeth found in the graveyard
were hard-to-reach molars. And in at least one instance, the ancient
dentist managed to drill a hole in the inside back end of a tooth,
boring out toward the front of the mouth.
The
holes went as deep as one-seventh of an inch (3.5 millimeters).
"The
holes were so perfect, so nice," said study co-author David
Frayer, an anthropology professor at the University of Kansas.
"I showed the pictures to my dentist and he thought they
were amazing holes."
Painful
for the patient
How it was done is painful just to think about. Researchers figured
that a small bow was used to drive the flint drill tips into patients'
teeth. Flint drill heads were found on site. So study lead author
Roberto Macchiarelli, an anthropology professor at the University
of Poitiers, France, and colleagues simulated the technique and
drilled through human (but no longer attached) teeth in less than
a minute.
Definitely
it had to be painful for the patient," Macchiarelli said.
Researchers
were impressed by how advanced the society was in Pakistan's Baluchistan
province. The drilling occurred on ordinary men and women.
The
dentistry, probably evolved from intricate ornamental bead drilling
that was also done by the society there, went on for about 1,500
years until about 5500 B.C., Macchiarelli said. After that, there
were no signs of drilling.
Reducing
pain, or releasing 'evil spirits'
Macchiarelli and Frayer said the drilling was likely done to reduce
the pain of cavities.
Macchiarelli
pointed to one unfortunate patient who had a tooth drilled twice.
Another patient had three teeth drilled. Four drilled teeth showed
signs of cavities. No sign of fillings were found, but there could
have been an asphaltlike substance inside, he said.
Dr.
Richard Glenner, a Chicago dentist and author of dental history
books, wouldn't bite on the idea that this was good dentistry.
The drilling could have been decorative or to release "evil
spirits" more than fighting tooth decay, he said, adding,
"Why did they do it? No one will ever know."
Macchiarelli
said the hard-to-see locations of the drilled teeth in jaws seem
to rule out drilling for decorative purposes. Frayer said the
prehistoric drillers' skill is something modern-day patients can
use to lord over their dentists.
"This
may be something to tell your dentist: If these people 9,000 years
ago could make a hole this perfect in less than a minute,"
Frayer said, "what are they doing?"
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12168308/
9,000-Year-Old Dental Drill Is Found
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON
- Proving prehistoric man's ingenuity and ability to withstand
and inflict excruciating pain, researchers have found that dental
drilling dates back 9,000 years.
Primitive
dentists drilled nearly perfect holes into live but undoubtedly
unhappy patients between 5500 B.C. and 7000 B.C., an article in
Thursday's journal Nature reports. Researchers carbon-dated at
least nine skulls with 11 drill holes found in a Pakistan graveyard.
That
means dentistry is at least 4,000 years older than first thought
— and far older than the useful invention of anesthesia.
This
was no mere tooth tinkering. The drilled teeth found in the graveyard
were hard-to-reach molars. And in at least one instance, the ancient
dentist managed to drill a hole in the inside back end of a tooth,
boring out toward the front of the mouth.
The
holes went as deep as one-seventh of an inch (3.5 millimeters).
"The
holes were so perfect, so nice," said study co-author David
Frayer, an anthropology professor at the University of Kansas.
"I showed the pictures to my dentist and he thought they
were amazing holes."
How
it was done is painful just to think about. Researchers figured
that a small bow was used to drive the flint drill tips into patients'
teeth. Flint drill heads were found on site. So study lead author
Roberto Macchiarelli, an anthropology professor at the University
of Poitiers, France, and colleagues simulated the technique and
drilled through human (but no longer attached) teeth in less than
a minute.
"Definitely
it had to be painful for the patient," Macchiarelli said.
Researchers
were impressed by how advanced the society was in Pakistan's Baluchistan
province. The drilling occurred on ordinary men and women.
The
dentistry, probably evolved from intricate ornamental bead drilling
that was also done by the society there, went on for about 1,500
years until about 5500 B.C., Macchiarelli said. After that, there
were no signs of drilling.
Macchiarelli
and Frayer said the drilling was likely done to reduce the pain
of cavities.
Macchiarelli
pointed to one unfortunate patient who had a tooth drilled twice.
Another patient had three teeth drilled. Four drilled teeth showed
signs of cavities. No sign of fillings were found, but there could
have been an asphalt-like substance inside, he said.
Dr.
Richard Glenner, a Chicago dentist and author of dental history
books, wouldn't bite on the idea that this was good dentistry.
The drilling could have been decorative or to release "evil
spirits" more than fighting tooth decay, he said, adding,
"Why did they do it? No one will ever know."
Macchiarelli
said the hard-to-see locations of the drilled teeth in jaws seem
to rule out drilling for decorative purposes. Frayer said the
prehistoric drillers' skill is something modern-day patients can
use to lord over their dentists.
"This
may be something to tell your dentist: If these people 9,000 years
ago could make a hole this perfect in less than a minute,"
Frayer said, "what are they doing?"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060405/ap_on_sc/prehistoric_dentistry
Flint
Drills Kept Stone-Age Smiles Bright
04.05.06, 12:00 AM ET
WEDNESDAY,
April 5 (HealthDay News) -- Human teeth from almost 9,000 years
ago show evidence of prehistoric -- but highly developed and precise
-- dental drilling and filling, anthropologists say.
The
find in Pakistan, reported in this week's Nature, pushes the origins
of dentistry to long before recorded history, but leaves behind
another mystery, since these procedures appear to have died out
after 6,500 B.C.
But
the precision and placement of the drilled holes -- in teeth with
evidence of cavities -- leaves little doubt they were done to
treat tooth decay, according to the researchers.
"Something
interesting is going on with those teeth, and it looks like it
had something to do with dentistry," said David DeGusta,
an assistant professor of anthropological sciences at Stanford
University in Palo Alto, Calif.
DeGusta,
who was not involved in the Pakistani dig, is one of the world's
leading experts on "prehistoric dentistry." In the late
1990s, his team discovered a similar, precisely drilled hole in
a 1,000-year-old tooth found in a burial site in Colorado. That
find remains the first evidence of prehistoric dentistry in the
American Southwest, and one of only two such finds in the Americas.
According
to the American Dental Association, the first recorded mention
of dental health comes from the ancient Sumeria of 5,000 B.C.,
with a text attributing dental decay to "tooth worms."
The first recorded evidence of dentistry, per se, comes from a
tomb inscription for Hesy-Re, a doctor-scribe who was lauded as
"the greatest of those who deal with teeth and of physicians."
His dental office closed up shop in about 2,600 B.C., archaeologists
say.
The
Pakistani site, a "neolithic cemetery" at Mehrgarh in
the southwestern province of Baluchistan, goes further back, to
a 1,500-year period between 5,500 B.C. and 7,000 B.C. However,
the anthropological team working there said that, despite its
antiquity, the site revealed that the early agricultural society
they uncovered had "an increasingly rich cultural life with
technological sophistication based on diverse raw materials."
The
first evidence of dentistry at the burial ground emerged about
five years ago, when excavators discovered two molars with tiny
perfectly drilled holes.
In
this latest report, anthropologists led by Dr. Roberto Macchiarelli,
of the University of Poitiers in Poitiers, France, said they have
since discovered 11 permanent fillings in molars from both the
upper and lower jaws of four females, two males and three individuals
of unknown gender.
High-tech
electron microscopy revealed precise hole formations that could
only have been mechanical in nature, the scientists said, and
"smoothing" along the margins of the holes indicates
that months or years of chewing occurred after the holes were
drilled.
"The
teeth of at least one individual reveal that the procedure involved
not just the removal of the tooth structure by the drill, but
also subsequent micro-tool carving of the cavity wall by either
the operator or the patient," the anthropologists wrote in
their report.
Because
molars lie far back in the mouth, there's no evidence that the
holes were drilled for any decorative purpose, the researchers
said. Four of the 11 teeth showed definite evidence of nearby
decay. According to DeGusta, "When you have people drilling
teeth that had cavities, it's not a stretch to suggest that it
might have been early dentistry."
Macchiarelli's
team noted that the drilled holes often "exposed sensitive
tooth structure, so some type of filling may have been placed
in the cavity," although the scientists stressed there was
no evidence to confirm that.
How
did ancient humans produce such precise dental work?
DeGusta's
team found that an obsidian flake mounted on the tip of a slim
rod, then rotated vigorously by the palms, effectively drilled
through human tooth enamel to produce conical holes similar to
the one seen in the Colorado find. And in its own research, the
team in Pakistan used a "bow drill" technique (using
a local material, flint, instead) to similar effect.
Macchiarelli's
team also noted the presence throughout the Pakistani dig of drilled,
decorative beads made from turquoise, lapis lazuli, carnelian
and other precious stones. Since precision drilling would be needed
to create such jewelry, they speculated that "the know-how
originally developed by skilled artisans for bead production"
gave rise to its use in prehistoric dental offices.
Degusta
called that theory "a reasonable hypothesis, but I'd like
to find some way to test it. Maybe we could compare the micro-striations
of the teeth with those of the beads to see if they really do
match."
But
one mystery remains: No evidence of dentistry has been found in
Mehrgarh graves dating from later than 6,500 B.C., which suggests
the highly skilled craft died out.
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2006/04/05/hscout531976.html
Yeeowww!
Prehistoric Dentists Used Stone Drills
By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 05 April 2006
01:00 pm ET
If
you dread going to the dentist, be thankful you didn't live in
the Stone Age.
Roughly
8,000 years before Novocaine and some 7,300 years before they
could even swig whiskey to dull the pain, prehistoric patients
were having holes drilled into their teeth with drill bits carved
from stone.
Scientists
found 11 teeth from the skeletons of four females, two males and
three individuals of unknown gender in an ancient cemetery in
Pakistan that show signs of having undergone the painful procedure.
Life
after pain
All
the teeth had worn a bit after the holes were made, confirming
that the drillings were performed while the people were still
alive.
It's
unlikely the holes were drilled for decorative purposes since
all of teeth were first or second permanent molars located deep
inside the mouth, said study leader Roberto Macchiarelli from
the Universite de Poitiers in France.
The
researchers think the dental work may have been done to ease pain,
since four of the teeth showed signs of decay and the jaw of at
least one individual showed signs of massive infection. One poor
soul had three drilled teeth and another had a tooth that had
been drilled twice.
The
procedure would have caused a lot of pain, too. The holes ranged
from about 1 to 3 millimeters in diameter and were about 0.5 to
3.5 millimeters deep.
One
minute of torture
The
researchers reconstructed a flint-tipped drill and found they
could create similar holes in less than a minute.
But
even with anesthetic, it would likely have been a very long one
minute, Macchiarelli said.
"The
extent and depth of the drilling would have produced horrible
pain," he told LiveScience. "These people took the capability
of facing pain to another level."
At
the excavation site, flint drill heads were found alongside beads
made of bone, shell, turquoise and other material. The researchers
think the early dentists learned their craft from artisans skilled
at making beads.
The
findings are detailed in the April 6 issue of the journal Nature.
http://www.livescience.com/history/060405_neolithic_dentist.html
Italians
find ancient dentists
Drill holes in 9,000-year-old teeth, researchers say (ANSA) - Rome,
April 5 - Italian researchers say they have found the world's oldest
dentists - drilling away in Pakistan 9,000 years ago .
The
Neolithic precursors of today's dental experts "used tiny
flint-tipped wooden drills they managed to whirl around 20 times
a second, using little bows," said Renato Guarini of Rome
University .
Signs
of drilling have so far been seen in eleven molars out of a trove
of almost 5,000 teeth found at a necropolis in Pakistan, Guarini
said .
"It's
an extraordinary discovery," he said .
The
teeth have been loaned by the Pakistan government to Rome's Pigorini
ethnography museum, where experts hope to find more holes .
"They
invented a whole new therapy, using their existing expertise with
beaded necklaces," said Pigorini anthropology chief Luca
Bondioli .
Hundreds
of bone, shell and stone beads have been found at the site at
Mehgar on the Indus River Valley, Bondioli said .
The
bead apertures are the same size as the tooth holes - a few tenths
of a millimetre .
Alfredo
Coppa of Rome University's Human Biology derpartment said: "At
first we thought the holes in the teeth were due to tooth decay.
Then we found the beads" .
"So
far we haven't found any trace of fillings but we're sure we will,"
Coppa added .
Materials
that could have been used to fill the drill holes are abundant
at the Pakistani site, he noted: bitumen, resin and cotton .
The
Rome researchers collaborated with experts in Paris, Poitiers,
Kansas and Yucatan on their study, which is set for publication
in the prestigious international journal Nature .
http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-04-05_1058952.html