How did cavemen...

[arctic hobo]

...clean their teeth? It puzzles me. I know their sugar intake was probably a tiny fraction of ours today, but the way my dentist goes on about it you'd think that missing a brush would give you lassa fever and TB both at once. I don't know about you lot but I've not had any primeval urges to go and chew sticks, which I know other animals do for toothcare... so what did prehistoric man do?

 

[Hoodoo]

...clean their teeth? It puzzles me. I know their sugar intake was probably a tiny fraction of ours today, but the way my dentist goes on about it you'd think that missing a brush would give you lassa fever and TB both at once. I don't know about you lot but I've not had any primeval urges to go and chew sticks, which I know other animals do for toothcare... so what did prehistoric man do?

What I was told when I was an undergrad taking anthro courses is that there was a huge rise in cavities that corresponds with the advent of agriculture and the movement away from hunter-gathering and towards increased consumption of grains and other high starch, high sugar foods. Not sure if that hypothesis still holds true...

 

[Stuart]

Hoodoos explaination is the most likley reason and the one which has the most evidence supporting it.

cavitys would of course still arise on a hunter gatherer diet but not untill much later in life, by which time (due to a short lifespan) somthing else would have gotten you first.

if you did develop a cavity early in life you would suffer in extreame pain untill the pressure burst though the wall of the jaw, which might be the end of it or the infection might spread to the nearby sinus and eventually kill you , such is the life of a caveman.

later when they discovered the benifits of caring for their teeth they most likley used frayed sticks and ash from the fire

 

[Mike T]

Maybe they had knowledge of plants that would draw the pus or perhaps they used a needle made from bone to lance it? (... I wonder what the incidence of tetanus was in those days? )
Do you think natural selection meant that surviving folk were more resilient in those days?
Another thought: I've heard that through intensive farming, the soil's mineral content these days is drastically lower than it was only 60 years ago, so perhaps the stoneage diet meant that their tooth enamel was far stronger than a 21st century human on a supplement-free diet?

 

[Pappa]

I forget where, but I've read that chewing wood has been observed amongst hunter-gatherer groups. Also, I think there is at least one example of a sucessfully drilled neolithic tooth cavity. I read about it in Richard Rudgley's Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age.

Pappa

 

[innocent bystander]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were genetically disposed to having stronger teeth and less problems, but having said that there are a large number of finds that show trepanning to be quite common. So minor tooth surgery should have been well within their means.......?

 

[Mauro]

Hoodoos explaination is the most likley reason and the one which has the most evidence supporting it.

cavitys would of course still arise on a hunter gatherer diet but not untill much later in life, by which time (due to a short lifespan) somthing else would have gotten you first.

if you did develop a cavity early in life you would suffer in extreame pain untill the pressure burst though the wall of the jaw, which might be the end of it or the infection might spread to the nearby sinus and eventually kill you , such is the life of a caveman.

later when they discovered the benifits of caring for their teeth they most likley used frayed sticks and ash from the fire

I agree...

I also think that people would have used plants with mild anti-bacterial properties, such as sage and pine resine for dental hygene. I would be like to know which other plants have similar properties!

 

[Ranger Bob]

I've read that chewing wood has been observed amongst hunter-gatherer groups.

This method was used around the world in the middle ages. Called, tooth-wood (how original) you would take a stick, (hazel or willow would be good) about the thickness of your thumb and chew the end, this would give a rough cleaning of the teeth as well as causing the end of the stick to fan out into a kind of brush. You would then use this to get to the teeth at the back.....it would be used in more of a stabbing motion than the brushing we're familiar with....watch out for splinters though!

 

[ssj]

Sort of a corroboration of other posts. I read once (I don't remember the source) that American Indians chewed a twig, flattened it out and used the "fan" to massage the gums. Also, I once knew I guy from Mexico that would do the same with a toothpick. He seemed to have well cared for teeth.
Steve

 

[Ryan Woods]

When I was still under my mothers' wing she used to buy me a stick of - literally translated - sweet wood or zoethout from the local health shop. You could chew for ages on there and was a lovely liquorice taste to it. Im sure it cleaned my teeth too - only ever had one filling.

 

[Spacemonkey]

I'll go along with the genetic thing, and lack of sugars. As a kid, I never really looked after my teeth, and even now, only do them in the morning. I'm not anal about my teeth like my girlfriend who brushes them even if she thinks about eating something. And guess what? my teeth are perfect, and I've never had or needed any fillings etc etc in all my life. And my girlfriend has the usual fillings, caps etc. I also agree that with the average 30 year lifespan, that in the 'good old days' you generally died of something elses nasty before tooth rot set in.

 

[Ogri the trog]

When I was still under my mothers' wing she used to buy me a stick of - literally translated - sweet wood or zoethout from the local health shop. You could chew for ages on there and was a lovely liquorice taste to it. Im sure it cleaned my teeth too - only ever had one filling.

You can still get Liquorice Root sticks in some health food shops or older chemists, though they are nowhere near the thickness of your thumb, more like pencil thickness these days.

Ogri the trog

 

[Pappa]

Concering the tooth decay / short life thing. It's not really dying young that matters (although that obviously plays a major part), but getting tooth decay after you've procreated. It's thought that's why us humans have such problems with wisdom teeth; generally we've already had children before our wisdom teeth start growing out sideways, going septic and killing us.

Although, I suppose that doesn't account for the benefits of humans having a grandparent stage too.

It's interesting how many references there are in the ethnobotany and anthropology of Amazonia relating to 'toothache'. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is tobacco, but I remember that there are lots of plants which are or have been used to treat toothache. Perhaps even with a reduced sugar intake, toothache has always been part of human existence.

Pappa

 

[digbum]

I like the wood and ash idea. One of my colleagues found and owns what he claims is a mesolithic false tooth made of flint. He took it to the british museum who told him that there is nothing like it on record anywhere. Unfortunatley its pretty hard to date out of context so they didnt want to keep it. He also took it to a dentist who rekons its an accurate copy of a left human incisor. If pre-agricultural people had the skill to do dental surgery like this, im sure they knew how to avoid having to have it.

 

[greg2935]

The Shona, San and Ndebele chew wood (matchsticks today!) to clean their teeth so assume most other peoples of Africa do the same, in medeval europe people tended not to bother cleaning with a resulting thick tartar buildup that can be easily seen when they dig up human remains today, they had a diet almost devoid of sugar: therefore relatively few cavities though.

 

[FeralSheryl]

My folks grew up in India and used to tell me that people there used the twigs of the Neem tree as a natural tooth brush. As already mentioned here, chewing the end of the twig to create bristles you can then use the twig as a very effective brush. But there are properties in the Neem plant itself that are highly effective in reducing cavities and healing gum diseases. So you sort of have tooth brush and tooth paste combined. What it tastes like I don't know, never tried it and when I asked my parent's they never had either.

I spent a lot of my early childhood in Africa and I clearly remember people deliberately selecting twigs from a particular bush to use in the same way. Everyone I knew appeared to have beautifully white healthy looking teeth. Unfortunately I never asked the name of the bush. D'oh!

Our Ancestors must have known of similar plants in this country. Perhaps there are trees/bushes here with similar properties to Neem. There's a lot of lost knowledge out there. I'd be very interested in learning what they might be if anyone finds out.