Stone Age people treated cavities

摘要

Stone Age dentists didn't drill and fill cavities. They scraped and coated them. Two teeth from a person who lived in what's now northern Italy between 13,000 and 12,740 years ago bear signs of someone having scoured and removed what must have been infected soft, inner tissue. The treated area was then covered with bitumen, a sticky, tarlike substance Stone Age folks used to attach stone tools to handles, says a team led by biological anthropologists Gregorio Oxilia and Stefano Benazzi, both of the University of Bologna in Italy.