| Pre-Historic Dentists May Have Repaired Teeth Updated 2:13 PM ET April 11, 2001 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." Back to Main Page |