DENTISTS may have drilled teeth to remove decay more than 8000 years ago in
prehistoric Pakistan, according to an international team of researchers. Tiny
holes drilled in teeth found at Mehrgarh, in Baluchistan, provide some of the
earliest evidence of dentistry.
Archaeological study of the site suggests that the people who lived there
8000 to 9000 years ago had a sophisticated civilisation. They cultivated crops,
kept livestock and created elaborate jewellery from shells, amethyst and
turquoise.
But no one suspected that they also had dentists. Then last year, Andrea
Cucina of the University of Missouri-Columbia was cleaning teeth from the…
