The Iceman's Last Meal

sciencehabit writes "Less than two hours before he hiked his last steps in the Tyrolean Alps 5000 years ago, Ötzi the Iceman fueled up on a last meal of ibex meat, according to a new study. Armed with Ötzi's newly sequenced genome and a detailed dental analysis, scientists have also found that the Iceman had brown eyes (not blue, as commonly assumed) and probably wasn't much of a tooth brusher. Dental analysis shows that the Iceman suffered a blunt force trauma to two teeth — possibly a blow to the mouth — at least several days before his death and was plagued by both periodontal disease and cavities."

Re:Not much of a tooth brusher

[rolfwind]

They always tell me before the rise of civilization that human teeth were perfectly fine. That natural sweets like fruit fibers forced the sugar away before any real damage was done. That white flour and white sugar, removed from it's natural fibers do all the damage. And I know that is true to some extent, but I really don't think before that crap came that everyone was running around with perfect teeth.

So, was Oetzi from a civilization with all that bad stuff in that sense, since he's way younger than 10,000 years old? Or do human teeth really just suck that much? (FWIW, I wish all our teeth were like baby teeth, constantly displaced and renewed every 5-7 years).

Re:Not much of a tooth brusher

[Spy Handler]

it's not just human teeth that suck, or that civilization/agriculture ruined our teeth. Animal conservation people often tranquilize lions in the wild to relocate them/take blood samples for studies, etc... very often they find the lion with cavities and gingivitis, even though it's been living on a diet of meat exclusively (as all lions have for millenia).

I saw this on NatGeo once -- scientists tranqulized a lion took some samples and gave it a checkup, and one of the things they did was to drill out a cavitity and fill it, and give him a dental cleaning (with dental floss). It was pretty funny.