Rotten Teeth Gatherers

Ancient hunter-gatherers have paid high price as they might have sustained themselves by eating lots of nuts and other starchy foods. Tooth decay only became common in humans about 10,000 years ago, when we began farming and eating starchy crops that fed sugar-loving bacteria on our teeth.
It is analysed that the remains of 52 adults who lived between 15,000 and 13,700 years ago, and who were buried together in a cave in Taforalt, Morocco. Evidences of decay in more than half of the surviving teeth have been found, a commonness of dental diseases have been inspected with comparison to that of modern, industrial societies with diets high in refined sugars. Only three skeletons showed no signs of cavities at the sight.
“This is the first time when such bad oral health in a pre-agricultural population” has been seen. Tooth decay has been found in other scavenging societies, but still scientists have not found evidences of such a high incidence of dental disease in the group of this size.
Till now, archaeologists have discovered that the oldest populations with lots of cavities were the ones who ate domesticated wheat and barley. Such crops are discovered especially when finely ground into porridges and breads, are much stickier and higher in sugar than wild fruits and grains. These make them an ideal food recourse for cavity-causing bacteria, which generates acids that wear down tooth enamel as they digest carbohydrates.
The remains of pine nuts and sweet North African acorns were also discovered. There were also remains of grindstones that could have generated nuts into flat breads & sticky porridges. “A heavy dependency on certain plant foods well before people began to depend on cultivated plants could be in certain circumstances, leading to significant tooth decay levels. The finding suggests that the change from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary farming might not have been as clear-cut as thought.

By: Saksham Gupta
Content: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24817-ancient-hunter-gatherers-had-rotten-teeth/#ixzz611326ZSY