This prehistoric trick shows how people in the ice age score the teeth of jewelry

When collecting the cultural practices of the ancient humans, traditional archaeologists rely on evidence of artifacts such as tools, bones and pottery. However, experimental archaeologists take a step forward – they consume previous behaviors to experience how people live once.

This is exactly what a team of researchers recently done to investigate how to extract stone -east societies in northeastern Europe from animal teeth to produce accessories. Under the leadership of Aija Macāne, a visiting researcher at the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki, archaeologists have personally tested seven different extracting methods to determine which is the most effective and efficient. Their results were published on June 20 in the magazine Archaeological and anthropological sciencesHe presented new visions in the lives of prehistoric fishermen.

“Our experiments show that the extraction of teeth was a deliberate process, sensitive to time included in daily life, especially cooking practices,” Macāne He said In a university statement. “This challenges the assumption that the teeth used for jewelry were simply erasing or easily available.”

According to researchers, animal teeth were among the most common materials used to make jewelry, accessories and other personal decorations during the Stone Age, especially in the northern hemisphere. Experts know this thanks to sites such as Zvejnieki, a burial land in the north of Latvia, where the fisherman’s college has placed people to rest for five thousand years-from 7500 to 2600 BC. More than 2000 animal teeth of graves have been dug in Zvejnieki, making it a major location to study how ancient humans interact with these materials.

Archaeologists widely studied animal teeth tables from this site, investigating the species they came from, and how they were used, as they were placed inside the graves, and how they were made. However, studies are much lower in the process of extracting teeth and the physical effects that this leaves behind, as researchers note.

To fill this knowledge gap, McCain and her colleagues got their hands – literally. The team conducted a series of experiments to test seven different prehistoric methods for dental extraction: cutting, rhythm (or beating), drying air, soaking, direct heat, and two cooking techniques. They chose these techniques on the basis of previous archaeological and ethnographic research. “Although other methods can be tested, we argue that these seven are the most likely techniques available at this time,” the researchers say in their report.

For one year, they suffered from what was the case in the Stone Age in the Stone Age needing some teeth. The researchers conducted their experiments at the Experimental Center of īdeņa in East Latvia, which allowed them to source the necessary raw materials from licensed local fishermen. In total, they used seven skulls or tests from Eurosian Elk, two Wild Boar, and two of Roe Deer.

Of all the ways they have experienced, cooking techniques have proven more effective. Boiling the lower jaw in a bowl of ceramic not only the meat of the meat, but it causes the soft tissue separation from the bone, making it easy to extract the teeth manually. Placement of complete skulls inside the Earth’s oven-a hidden mud used for heat trap, in which case, steam food-the same effect.

Both methods allowed high extraction rates without destroying the teeth, with the additional reward for eating a meal and making the rest of the bones suitable for making tools. These results indicate that the extraction of teeth may have been integrated into broader cultural practices, merge food preparation, personal adornment, and funerary rituals.

As for other technologies, the soak has proven successful, but it did not provide additional advantages. It also made or hit the teeth to remove them, but it often causes damage. The last two methods – drying drought and applying direct heat – did not result in successful results.

“While this study focused mainly on a group of toothpastes of the Zvejnieki cemetery, our results have wider effects on understanding dental extraction and prehistoric production of the necklace,” the researchers say. “By examining the techniques used for dental extraction, we have gained valuable visions in human behavior and cultural practices during the Stone Age.”

Still, the questions remain. The researchers hope that their study will inspire other archaeologists to find physical effects of the process of extracting the artifacts of animal teeth. They also emphasize the importance of investigating teeth of other types, including humans and dogs. They say that such work will be “a critical light on the complexity and importance of these practices.”