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  "path": "/would-you-want-this-guy-as-your-dentist",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-15T15:54:44.000Z",
  "site": "https://defector.com",
  "tags": [
    "Science",
    "dentists",
    "early humans",
    "hominins",
    "innovations in teeth",
    "neanderthals",
    "Teeth",
    "PLOS One",
    "14,000 years ago"
  ],
  "textContent": "Around 59,000 years ago, somewhere in the Altai Mountains of southwestern Siberia, in lands prowling with woolly rhinos and cave hyenas, a Neanderthal had a toothache. The tooth was a molar, rooted in the lower left corner of the Neanderthal's mouth, and it had begun to rot. Such a dilemma is diabolically familiar to us modern humans, but at least we are fortunate to have dentists, who inflict upon us mild pain and terror in exchange for lasting relief.\n\nBut a new paper in the journal _PLOS One_ suggests that this Neanderthal had a dentist all of their own. After analyzing this ancient molar, which sported a strangely deep hole at its center, a team of researchers suggest this tooth is evidence of the world's earliest dental procedure, which, if true, might hold the superlative of being the worst possible way to get a root canal. The claim is big. The earliest confirmed evidence of a prehistoric dental treatment is from _Homo sapiens_ from around 14,000 years ago. This new paper would push that date back more than 45,000 years and record it in a different species of early human entirely, one that has historically and wrongly been dismissed as brutish. But some outside experts are not convinced of the paper's claims.\n\nJosé María Bermúdez de Castro, a paleoanthropologist at University College London who was not involved with the new paper, does not find the paper's evidence robust enough for its argument, although he said would not be surprised if Neanderthals did attempt therapeutic remedies. Bermúdez de Castro has studied other fossil teeth in several species of early humans that have been similarly modified in a palliative process called toothpicking, which is exactly what it sounds like. \"This could be another case of using a toothpick as a therapeutic remedy, without deliberate intervention from other individuals (surgical intervention), an operation that would be extremely painful without anesthesia,\" he wrote in an email. To Bermúdez de Castro, the Neanderthal molar seems to be just another tooth altered by toothpicking. \"In my opinion, the authors of this research have '[made] a storm in a teacup,\" he said.",
  "title": "Would You Want This Guy As Your Dentist?"
}