Article Blog 5/7/17 - Stone Age dentists treated cavities with tar

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Blausen_0864_ToothDecay.svg/2000px-Blausen_0864_ToothDecay.svg.png

Summary

Long before dentists existed, during the stone age, humans cleaned their cavities differently. They used sharp stones to scrape and chip out their decayed teeth and coated the damaged tooth with bitumen, a tarry type of crude oil. They also used toothpicks (pieces of sticks). About 20 years ago in a site in Italy called Riparo Fredian, some researchers excavated six teeth human teeth. The teeth were found to have scratch marks in the decayed part and after a chemical and microscopic analysis of the teeth, the researchers found out the dark parts of the cavity walls were actually bitumen as well as plant fibers and some hairs. Benazzai, a researcher believes that by coating the teeth with bitumen, it protected the teeth from further infection.

Citation

Bower, Bruce. "Stone Age Dentists Treated Cavities with Tar." Science News for Students. Science for Students, 05 May 2017. Web. 07 May 2017. <https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/stone-age-dentists-treated-cavities-tar>.

SP4: Analyzing and interpreting data

The author of this article, Bruce Bower, analyzed and interpreted data to learn more about this topic and write an article communicating what he learned. In order to find out all of this information on studies and what other scientists and researchers have learned about old dentistry, Bower had to do lots of research and analyze what information he found to verify its credibility.