Pre-Historic Dentists May Have Repaired Teeth

LONDON (Reuters) - Pre-historic people living in Asia 8,000 years ago
may have used stone-tipped drills to repair teeth, New Scientist
magazine said Wednesday.

In what could be one of the earliest examples of dentistry,
scientists at the University of Missouri-Columbia in the United
States have found tiny, perfectly rounded holes in teeth found in
Mehrgarh in pre-historic Pakistan, which they suspect were drilled to
repair tooth decay.

"The researchers looked at the holes with an electron microscope and
found the sides were too perfectly rounded to be cavities caused by
bacteria," according to the weekly science magazine.

"Under the microscope, they could see concentric grooves left by what
was probably a drill with a tiny stone bit."

Andrea Cucina, who first discovered the tiny holes, said they didn't
appear to be a funeral rite and the teeth were still in the jaw so
they had not been drilled to make a necklace.

He and his colleagues suspect the holes were a treatment for tooth
decay and that plants or another substance had been inserted into the
holes to prevent bacterial growth.

Because the holes were the same diameter of those found in their
beads the scientists said the people of Mehrgarh had the skill and
tools to perform such delicate work.

"At this point we can't be certain," said Cucina. "But it is very
tantalizing to think they had such knowledge of health and cavities
and medicine to do this."