Another reason not to have lived in the Stone Age.

[GURGLETROUSERS]

The worlds earliest dental operation is now thought to have carried out on a cave man, living 14,000 years ago. (Skeleton discovered in the Dolomites in 1988.)

He apparently had a severe infection in a molar, which had been ground out and filed away using a tiny flint tool called a microlith. We have no way of knowing whether he was bonked on the head (unconscious) during the 'operation' (unlikely, since it must have taken quite a time), or whether he simply screamed out in agony all the while.

The extraordinary point, to my mind, is that the concept of understanding the necessity to remove the harmful and potentially fatal infection, AND the necessary command of language to explain and make the patient accept that necessity, existed at that early time. It must have!

Makes you proud of our early ancestors, and our evolution to such a state.

P.S. Our near (97% same DNA) chimp relative branch of evolution apparently also suffer from tooth problems in the wild. It seems to be an evolutionary flaw in both us, and the ape branch of the evolutionary tree.

[MalibuGuru]

Contrary to some belief, our Anglo ancestry is more closely related to Neanderthal than Africans is. (very small it is) I find this to be very interesting.

[beaglebuddy]

One thing the chimps have over us is by staying on four legs their lower backs don't go out like ours do.