Beeswax as dental filling on a neolithic human tooth

Evidence of prehistoric dentistry has been limited to a few cases, the most ancient dating back to the Neolithic. Here we report a 6500-year-old human mandible from Slovenia whose left canine crown bears the traces of a filling with beeswax. The use of different analytical techniques, including sync...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-09, Vol.7 (9), p.e44904-e44904
Main Authors: Bernardini, Federico, Tuniz, Claudio, Coppa, Alfredo, Mancini, Lucia, Dreossi, Diego, Eichert, Diane, Turco, Gianluca, Biasotto, Matteo, Terrasi, Filippo, De Cesare, Nicola, Hua, Quan, Levchenko, Vladimir
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaeology
Beeswax
Canine teeth
Chewing
Computed tomography
Crack propagation
Dating
Dating techniques
Dental enamel
Dental fillings
Dental Restoration, Permanent - methods
Dentin
Dentistry
Egyptian civilization
Electron microscopy
Enamel
Fractures
History
Humans
Infrared spectroscopy
Laboratories
Male
Mandible
Mass Spectrometry
Mass spectroscopy
Mastication
Medicine
Neolithic
Neolithic period
Pain
Prehistoric era
Radiation
Radiocarbon dating
Radiometric Dating
Salam, Abdus
Scanning electron microscopy
Science
Scientific imaging
Slovenia
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Spectrophotometry, Infrared
Spectroscopy
Stone Age
Synchrotron radiation
Teeth
Theoretical physics
Tissues
Tooth
Trauma
Waxes
Waxes - chemistry
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Summary:Evidence of prehistoric dentistry has been limited to a few cases, the most ancient dating back to the Neolithic. Here we report a 6500-year-old human mandible from Slovenia whose left canine crown bears the traces of a filling with beeswax. The use of different analytical techniques, including synchrotron radiation computed micro-tomography (micro-CT), Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating, Infrared (IR) Spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), has shown that the exposed area of dentine resulting from occlusal wear and the upper part of a vertical crack affecting enamel and dentin tissues were filled with beeswax shortly before or after the individual's death. If the filling was done when the person was still alive, the intervention was likely aimed to relieve tooth sensitivity derived from either exposed dentine and/or the pain resulting from chewing on a cracked tooth: this would provide the earliest known direct evidence of therapeutic-palliative dental filling.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0044904