Stone Age Dentists 219
morleron writes "Scientists have found evidence in Pakistan that the Stone Age had dentists. They used flint drills to remove cavities and attempt other tooth repair. No evidence as to whether or not the patients were conscious during the procedures."
Obligatory: (Score:2, Funny)
Consciousness (Score:5, Funny)
During the "Stone" Age, I think it's obvious that even the patients were conscious, they weren't be soon after the procedures started.
I'm more interested in knowing if the patients were still alive after the procedures.
Re:Consciousness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Consciousness (Score:2, Informative)
Kinda like the romans and ?mayans/incas/aztecs(one of the three, don't feel like doing the google)? performing brain surgery and the patients living. This was proved by bone growth around the openings.
Re:Consciousness (Score:2)
Re:Consciousness (Score:3, Informative)
Successful brain surgery dates back to at least 3,000 BCE, so it wouldn't surprise me.
I'd like to know what (if anything) they were using for fillings.
Re:Consciousness (Score:2, Informative)
These have more info than the BBC story
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/05/news/teeth
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0
Re:Consciousness (Score:3, Funny)
it's not *that* bad (Score:4, Interesting)
What I find more curious about this report is that the ancient men were observant enough to realize that if you stopped the decay by drilling it out, you needn't lose the tooth later. As late as the 18th century or so, I believe the standard treatment for a decaying tooth was: (1) wait until it really starts to hurt, and then (2) pull it out. Drilling the decay out (while preserving the tooth) is a lot more sophisticated.
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
Hindi mystics traditionally have a word for 1/36,000,000th of a second, although none of them know why. Indian atomism describes 3 types of indivisible particles that can combine to form all the elements we know (a theory that suspiciously resembles current ideas of subatomic particles). Now
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
I'm also intrigued by the idea, and am not even sure why it's supposed to be so unlikely. Homo Sapiens existed for probably at least 200,000 years with the same physiological capacities as today. I don't really see why a development at least to the level of ancient Egypt should have occurred only once during the last 10,000 of the available years.
There is some evidence (not so good link for Sudanese pyramid-building cultures predating Egypt, whose architectural remains wer
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
I'm not sure much of what we've built would survive 50 million years. That's an awful long time. Continents move, climate changes, mountain ranges are uplifted and eroded down, rivers change course, seas are formed and dry up again. Your typical 50 million year old strata is 50 to 100 feet down, I believe. So those artifacts would be whatever survives
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
Hell, end of the last ice age vast amounts of the Earth changed, much of what was coastline became pretty far out into the ocean. In fact, we've only recently really started seriously thinking about looking out th
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
After the Middle Ages, LOTS of stuff had to be rediscovered (often badly, often not at all) that was well-known before the christian churches destroyed or locked up "pagan" knowledge and killed the people in the know.
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2, Informative)
A hell of a lot of Western knowledge was lost due to the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, which happened early in the 1st millenium. Amongst other things lost were originals of Aristotle and Euclid, and Heron's plans for his steam car.
It's thought by some that we still haven't brought geometry to the state it was in before the Dark Ages.
We do have to keep in mind though that non-western civilisations kept most of their knowledge until the colonial powers t
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
Only by those who don't read Hebrew, Arabic, and Farsi (which, sadly, includes almost every scholar of Hellenic math and sciences). I remember once in a Hellenic conics class I was taking the prof. said "unfortunately, book III of whatever has been lost", which surprised me because we had just been studying the Arabic version of book III of whatever that week in my medieval Arabic class.
Incidentally,
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
Disagreed insofar as that does not mean I'm "off". I was merely talking about something else, namely the extermination of the knowledge of the celtic, germanic, etc. cultures. This did still happen even though it was not the only event in which knowledge was lost, as you rightly pointed out.
E.g., most of the knowledge about the healing and other properties of local European
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
I rarely defend Christianity, but I do think it deserves a more balanced view than this one. The Catholic Church, its monasteries and universities, and the "Holy Roman Empire" at least kept alive the memory (and some of the works) of the great civilization that fell apart. Without it it would h
Re:it's not *that* bad (Score:2)
I never had a filling done with an anaesthetic. There is really hardly any pain involved if you don't need a root canal treatment first, and I don't think these stone age dentists did those. Root canals are doable without anaesthesia too: I tried it twice.
Re:Consciousness (Score:2)
Even if they were stone age people, none would consciously go to a dentist using flint drills!
Re:Consciousness (Score:4, Insightful)
You'll find that most 'normal' (non-prescription and low-end prescription) drugs don't do a lot for you, and anything that might relieve the pain starts to seem like a good idea, even if it involves someone tinkering inside your mouth with a rock
Lack of progress (Score:4, Insightful)
Lately, there was a slashdot story about changing the electrical properties of teeth so that plaque can't attach. In sci-fi, there are ideas like hermetically sealing teeth. I really think dentistry should be working much harder towards things like that.
Re:Lack of progress (Score:2)
What? And kill off all the profitable fillings, root canals, and all the rest?
There's another perspective. (Score:2)
Re:Lack of progress (Score:2)
>>
>> In Soviet Russia, all our base are belong to you!
In Soviet Russia, your precious bodily fluids corrupt the water supply.
Conciousness is lost soon after the procedure... (Score:2)
That scene still gives me the heebie jeebies just remembering it!
Re:Consciousness (Score:5, Funny)
They used an electrical cauterizer to keep the bleeding down...it sounded like the lightning gun in Q3A and felt like what you can imagine electricity against the scrotal area feels like.
I said, "Doctor, I can feel that." He zapped me and said, "you felt that?"
I never was able to play Q3A again because of that lightning gun sound.
A Spinal Tap is pretty bad, migraines since my stroke are bad, but the cauterizer was worse.
Re:Consciousness (Score:2)
Re:Consciousness (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly my thought. In fact whenever I see dental equipment from hundreds of years ago in a museum (or the odd dentist who likes to showcase it in his waiting room), I believe to be able to infer the amount of dental pain the patients suffered from the instruments they allowed to be used to help them.
Drilling a hole into a tooth with a foot pedal-powered drill, then pouring molten lead into the cavity must have been better than the toothache. Aaargh!
Old Drilling? (Score:2)
Try the old Slashdot story department maybe?
It's alright, us Slashdot readers understand. After having your teeth drilled without Novacaine it's understandable that you're suffering from memory loss or blocking out the trauma as previously reported.
I wanna make a bow drill now.
Re:Old Drilling? (Score:2)
Now, I don't know how he does this, but I joke with him that he must have worked as a spy for the CIA. He says it's a matter of letting go and making your mind wander to something else - but I'm not about to test this.
But anyway, he shows no memoryloss/blocking due to trauma. I imagine ancient peoples in general having a higher pain threshhold due t
Re:Old Drilling? (Score:2)
Re:Old Drilling? (Score:2)
Re:Old Drilling? (Score:2)
Pain is an electrical impulse being sent from a nerve to the brain, signaling the brain that pain exists. The brain then comprehends the pain, and responds appropriately.
If you are mentally strong enough to ignore those sensations, there is no pain.
Most people have a problem with doing this. Instead of being able to ignore the pain, they focus on it. People who can ignore the pain are usually the ones who can ignore a dripping f
Re:Old Drilling? (Score:2)
Come on, I have plenty of fillings and almost all of them have been done without anesthesia. Only when they extracted the wisdom teeth and when they had to work for 60 minutes to place a crown, I asked for anesthesia. Actually, with the wisdom teeth I didn't have an option and with the crown I'm still not sure that it was necessary. On the other hand
Re:Old Drilling? (Score:2)
It's always easy (Score:2, Insightful)
Would that also mean they had fillings? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the tooth bone (pulp or whatever the stuff below the enamel is) is exposed, wouldn't it start to rot in no time?
If yes and the further decay is limited (4 teeth showed decay associated with the hole), would that suggestion that they filled the hole with clay, resin, or some other material capable of hardening?
Bert
Re:Would that also mean they had fillings? (Score:5, Informative)
ought to help though (Score:3, Insightful)
Afterward, you have a great big hole. You'd at least have some hope of keeping it kind of clean so that things don't get much worse.
Re:Would that also mean they had fillings? (Score:5, Funny)
Regarding the present discovery, it is thought that the tonsils were removed at the time of the dental work, disrupting the life cycle of the mites. Unfortunately the soft tissues were not preserved and the only evidence is indirect. Measurements of the skull ridges where the tonsils attach tend to support this theory, although it is difficult to know whether they represent tonsillectomy-induced changes or simply a natural variation in an isolated population.
--
Call now for our Become a Scientist in 21 Days program. If you act now we'll throw in 5 pounds of authority, absolutely free!!!
Re:Would that also mean they had fillings? (Score:2)
Re:Would that also mean they had fillings? (Score:2)
Re:Would that also mean they had fillings? (Score:2)
Re:Would that also mean they had fillings? (Score:2)
Re:Would that also mean they had fillings? (Score:2)
Re:Would that also mean they had fillings? (Score:2)
Teeth filled with Amber - the ultimate in Stone Age 'bling.'
This week on 'The Flintstones'.... (Score:5, Funny)
Captain Caveman - the Dentist (Score:4, Funny)
Captain Caveman apply anesthetics so you dont feel pain (SLAM!)
progress (Score:2)
Why? (Score:2)
Malcolm Gladwell on Tooth Decay and US Health Care (Score:2)
Go ahead, mod me offtopic.
Drills to remove cavities? (Score:2)
Em, a cavity is a hole, so can someone tell me how you remove a hole with a drill?
Re:Drills to remove cavities? (Score:2)
Otto: Well how we gonna get outta here?
Homer: We'll dig our way out!
Wiggum: No, no, dig up, stupid!
Re:Drills to remove cavities? (Score:2)
Re:Drills to remove cavities? (Score:2, Funny)
Did some looking up on our fragile teeth (Score:5, Informative)
There are a lot of people out there who keep repeating that cavities were not a problem in most people until refined sugar hit the scene around the 1700s and that the industrial revolution made it cheap for the masses.
This is true to a point but I guess this article shows it's stupid to think that no one had cavities before refined sugar.
Drspiller.com being a good site to look up some info. Meat won't give cavities. Natural starchy foods (vegetables like potatoes) and fruit have many natural fibers that wash their own sugars off your teeth before they have time to settle, and the acids in them negligent because of dilution. With a drink of water afterwards should prevent any problems.
So it's true, processed and refined foods, especially with sugar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, etcetera, are the biggest causes of cavities.
However, dried fruits are sticky and should be treated as refined sugar or processed foods (these all can cause cavities) and may be the biggest cavity causer of the old world (along with perhaps alcohols, like mead, etcetera).
Re:Did some looking up on our fragile teeth (Score:2)
It probably also has something to do with the fact that throughout most of human evolution, the average life span is *far* shorter than that of today. People just needed to survive to child bearing age and raise the child to self-suficiency, to be evolutionarily successful. That can be done by your teens. Even our fragile teeth, with poor hygiene, would likely last that long no problem. No that we're living well past our 30's, 40'
Where There Is No Dentist (Score:5, Informative)
"Where There Is No Dentist" [hesperian.org]
cheers
front
I'd disagree, only in that (Score:2)
There is one part that intrigues me more than all of this put together, though. Flint
Regressive culture? (Score:2)
If humans in then stone-age were aware of how to handle toothdecay in such detail. (not just knocking out the affected teeth, but drilling) how come in the mideavil ages humans seemed to have reached a deep low? (I thought the French used anise to cover the smell of their rotting teeth and themselves)
The more scientists discover [pbs.org] about humans in the stone-age, the more they appear to be very peaceful and more develloped as priorly portraited.
Re:Regressive culture? (Score:2)
It was not until later in history that this trend developped ; during the middle ages, people were cleaner than you'd have thought. They took bath, knew how to make soap and used it. In fact, bathing was part
Fascinating. (Score:2, Interesting)
Books from Roman times show that complicated operations were routine, but the scale of dentistry has its own particular challenges. Making a thick drill from flint may be easy, but to make a fine dental drill that won't break before the tooth could be a real challenge.
Sad to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hasnt changed much (Score:4, Interesting)
They obtain their tools from the organic waste of hospitals of Karachi which are sold on trolleys in the bazaars there. You see thousands of scalpels and the likes lined up under the sun sold for Rs 5 (10c) or less even to the grand public. Get up real close and in the crevices of the handle you'll notice dried up blood.
But the dentists DO boil their tools sometimes before your eyes on gas cookers, on the footpath. You'll occasionally hear a moan where a tooth is getting right out... real men dont need anasthetic.
With my full dental insurance here in Toronto, I still am put on long holds, have to fill out way more paperwork, and in the end, its still an italian surgeon who remarkably resembles the Qandahari Bazaar surgeons complete with hairy forearms, who pulls the teeth. Even the tools look the same. So stop pretending we've advanced that much!
Where the heck is (Score:2)
Re:Where the heck is (Score:3, Funny)
Today Only! Special Two for one Special:
You're already in pain, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. So why not get Trepanned [wikipedia.org] while your tooth is extracted?
"My molars were killing me," said one satisfied customer,"and I'd always wanted to have a hole drilled in my skull, so I said to myself, 'You're going to pass out from unbearable pain anyway, so why not?' Now I get respect like never before. I tell my hunting buddies that I lost my teeth in a fight with a
Look how far we've come (Score:2)
(Implied wink)
But seriously, screw the flying cars, screw the house-cleaning robots... where's my pain-free dentistry? Shouldn't we have something better than drills and shots by now?
(And yes, I'm terrified of dentists and w
When will modern dentists stop using flint? (Score:3, Interesting)
In my lifetime, dentists have changed the way you're supposed to brush your teeth three times now.
This isn't rocket science, folks. Try to find a way to get plague off someone's teeth without using C-4, please.
I suspect dentistry simply isn't trying to solve the problem of tooth decay - there's too much money in not solving it. By now, we should have a simple chemical that spread on the teeth should remove bacteria and plaque almost instantly and prevent further growth. It's ridiculous.
I guess I'll have to wait for further development of nanotech - I just hope I have any teeth left by then (OTOH, I'll probably be able to rebuild them with nanotech, anyway.)
Re:Rucas gets Fristage Postage? (Score:2, Funny)
THE MORE YOU KNOW! (Score:5, Funny)
they didn't use novocaine, they used NovoClub
NovoClub: Only one swing and the pain goes away!
Re:THE MORE YOU KNOW! (Score:4, Funny)
Roel
Re:THE MORE YOU KNOW! (Score:2)
this man is clearly under the influence of modern drugs! with NovaClub, you dont get any of these "side effects" such as posting incoherently on slashdot, just a minor headache!
Please note, NovaClub may cause constipation, diarrhea, dizziness, drowsiness, increased sweating, loss of appetite, nausea. Do not increase dose on your own; do not stop abruptly unless advised to
Re:anesthesia? (Score:5, Informative)
Probably not as bad as you'd think. Hemp, opium, datura, henbane, mandrake and hemlock were all known to be used as prehistoric anaesthetics. Dwale, an anaesthetic used in old England, was a reasonably sophisticated mixture of bile, lettuce, vinegar, bryony root, hemlock, opium, and henbane.
Re:anesthesia? (Score:2)
hemlock
Dearie dearie me, I'd read that olde booke of herbales again if I was you, anyone munching on sprig of hemlock will indeed feel nothing while you operate on them. Or ever again. We have to strip field of the stuff here to stop it killing the cows.
Re:anesthesia? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:anesthesia? (Score:2)
Re:anesthesia? (Score:5, Insightful)
They weren't exactly grunting fools 8,000-10,000 years ago.
Re:anesthesia? (Score:3, Interesting)
Before bad diet and state oppression (Score:3, Interesting)
"The Original Affluent Society" by Marshall Sahlins
http://www.eco-action.org/dt/affluent.html [eco-action.org]
"Hunter-gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings. Yet when you come to examine it the original affluent society was none other than the hunter's - in which all the people's material wants were easily satisfied. To accept that hunters are affluent is therefore to recognise that the present human cond
Re:Before bad diet and state oppression (Score:2)
Re:Before bad diet and state oppression (Score:2)
http://www.zcorp.com/products/printersdetail.asp?I D=2 [zcorp.com]
When something like that could print stuff that works like an iPod (and not just pretty mockups) then even more of the rationale for work will disappear.
Re:anesthesia? (Score:2)
Are you suggesting that they were smarter than most of us?
Whoa.
Re:anesthesia? (Score:2)
Re:anesthesia? (Score:2)
First, did they save a lot of money on their car insurance by switching to GEICO?
Secondly, did they really favor roast duck with a mango salsa?
Re:anesthesia? (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, sorry, but the opium poppy is an introduced species in Pakistan. Alexander gets the credit for the introduction, circa 327 BC, from "Ancient Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia".
It's a plant native to the Mediterranian basin.
The first record of opium being used medicinally in India (remember that Pakistan did not exist until the last half of the 20th century) occurs circa 1200 AD and recreational use of sufficient quantity to be notable did not begin until circa 1600, "coincident" with:
Massive cultivation of opium in India did not begin until the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch and English, began exporting it from India to China. It was the Dutch who taught the Chinese to smoke it, circa 1700.
Opium in Asia is one of the earliest byproducts of Eurpean "colonization" of the Orient. It was entirely unknown there before the Iron Age.
KFG
Re:anesthesia? (Score:2)
Codeine is actually a rather weak pain reliever. It's also a rather minor component of opium. The main active alkaloid is morphine. Codeine is just
methyl-morphine, and is demethylated in the body to morphine and has identical
pharmacology.
Neanderthals? (Score:2)
pot 40,000 years ago too?"
Re:Neanderthals? (Score:2)
I don't think the stone age dentist would have had a problem alleviating the pain.
Re:anesthesia? (Score:2)
*shrug* there's this assumption that people before the Enlightenment were stupid, but 'tain't so. Galen performed brain surgery. So did ancient Egyptians. People are very very good at figuring out the medicinal properties of herbs, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if there were some moderately effective anaesthesia they used.
Re:anesthesia? (Score:2)
Re:not dentist (Score:3, Funny)
what are you, an anti-dentite?
Re:They'd have a choice... (Score:2)
Re:They'd have a choice... (Score:2)
I saw an old John Wayne movie where he entered a dentist's office to avoid getting shot by a bad guy, and told the dentist to pretend to pull a tooth. So we got a look at what that involved in the Wild West. Lots of hollering, and the dentist grabbing the "tooth" with his "pliers".
The bad guy looked in the window, saw what was going on, and went off in another direction, forgetting about Wayne for some reason.
Anyone remember the name of that John Wayne movi