- Posted on: May 26 2015
Modern dentistry is pretty impressive, but many of the same treatments we use today were also used in historic times. Of course, modern dentistry has improved tremendously. A lot of dental problems modern humans face today, were not an issue in years past. A recent study shows that dental crowding however, has been an issue for thousands of years. The first evidence of dental crowding dates all the way back to the hunters and gatherers that lived over 12,000 years ago.
“Our analysis shows that the lower jaws of the world’s earliest farmers in the Levant, are not simply smaller versions of those of the predecessor hunter-gatherers, but that the lower jaw underwent a complex series of shape changes commensurate with the transition to agriculture,” says Professor Ron Pinhasi from the School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, University College Dublin, the lead author on the study. “Our findings show that the hunter gatherer populations have an almost “perfect harmony” between their lower jaws and teeth,” he added. “But this harmony begins to fade when you examine the lower jaws and teeth of the earliest farmers.”
Tagged with: dental crowding, Dental News, dentistry, teeth crowding
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