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Around 60,000 years ago in Siberia, a Neanderthal opened their mouth so that a rotten tooth could be drilled — and the case is the oldest evidence of an intentional dental treatment to date, a new study finds.A lower molar tooth belonging to a Neanderthal adult was originally unearthed in 2016, but it was not clear what had caused the deep hole in its surface. Now, experimental evidence indicates the hole was made with a small stone drill used to clean out bits of severely rotten tooth tissue, according to a study published Wednesday (May 13) in the journal PLOS One.This intricate procedure shows Neanderthals — our closest human relatives who lived from around 400,000 to 40,000 years ago — had the brains to recognize this painful tooth cavity could be treated and possessed the fine motor skills to successfully execute the procedure."The fact that this invasive treatment took place and the person survived lends me to believe that this is another example of the really very sophisticated Neanderthal understanding of human biology and when you need to intervene," study co-author John W. Olsen, a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Arizona, told Live Science.
[Sarc] It's amazing how much smarter Neanderthals have grown since I was learning about the in elementary school. It's almost as if they were human. [/Sarc]
