Man, the Toothpick User
Science · 2000
Early man may not have had Stim-u-dents to clean his teeth, but evidence is accruing that the use of toothpicks is as old as Homo himself. A molar from Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge, somewhere between 2.1 million and 1.7 million years old, bears unmistakable evidence of having been repeatedly probed by its owner, probably with a sharp piece of wood or bone, researchers say. “We're pushing the toothpick back in time,” says anthropologist Peter Ungar of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, who led a team that presented the dental discovery this month at a meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in San Antonio, Texas.