When you look at an ancient human skull, you will notice that most of the time their teeth were usually quite straight. Without braces, fluoride toothpaste or wisdom teeth extractions, most prehistoric humans had the teeth of a Hollywood actor. So how did they achieve this?
One of the biggest factors behind this is the shrinking of the human jaw over time and the resulting squeezing of teeth together.
90 PERCENT OF PEOPLE TODAY HAVE AT LEAST ONE IMPACTED TOOTH
Over the past few centuries, impacted wisdom teeth have become incredibly common. The American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons states that 90 percent of people have at least one impacted wisdom tooth, often requiring surgical extraction.
In pre-industrial times, impacted wisdom teeth appear to have been significantly less common, but other dental problems were quite common. However, before the beginning of agriculture, problematic wisdom teeth were much rarer.
According to details in Chip, the straight teeth seen in people of the past are closely linked to the shrinking jaws noted in a number of scientific studies.
In 2015, researchers analyzed 292 human skeletons found in the Levant, Anatolia and Europe, dating between 28,000 and 6,000 years ago. Their findings showed that people living in agricultural communities in the recent past had smaller (and differently shaped) mandibles compared to earlier hunter-gatherers.
According to the researchers, this may reflect a radical change in our diet throughout history. Before the advent of agriculture around 12,000 years ago, humans ate a diet consisting of meat and things that were harder and required more chewing.
After the agricultural revolution, people began to have access to easy-to-eat foods such as vegetables, cereals and rice that required less jaw strength to chew. In the modern era, things have become significantly more sloppy with the advent of processed and ultra-processed foods that require almost no significant jaw activity to consume.
The researchers note that the time period is extremely short in terms of evolution, so the change in jaw size is unlikely to be genetic. Instead, they think our small jaws are the result of the food we ate as babies.