How Cavemen Treated Toothaches

[00:00:00]Imagine this, you wake up in the middle of the night with a sharp, throbbing pain. Not in your leg, not in your stomach, in one tiny tooth. Every heartbeat sends another wave of pain shooting through your jaw. You close your mouth, pain. You open it, pain. You try to eat something, the moment that tooth touches food, it feels like a bolt of lightning tears through your head.

[00:00:23]Today, you just take a painkiller or book an appointment with a dentist. But imagine living 40,000 years ago. No painkillers, no dentists, no anesthesia, and the worst part, you can't just stop using your teeth. If you want to survive, you still have to eat, even if every bite feels like torture. You might think people back then were simply doomed, but they weren't. Our ancestors endured toothaches for tens of thousands of years. They searched for ways to ease the pain. Sometimes they got it completely wrong. Sometimes they discovered solutions that were surprisingly effective. And a few of those discoveries were so successful that versions of them are still used today. But first, we need to answer one question. Why did ancient humans get toothaches in the first place? After all, they didn't have candy, chocolate, or soda. Most people assume toothaches only became common after humans developed a taste for sugar. At first glance, that makes perfect sense. Today, sugar is considered one of the leading causes of tooth decay, so it's easy to imagine that ancient hunter-gatherers must have had nearly perfect teeth. And archaeologists have actually found an interesting pattern. People who lived tens of thousands of years ago had far fewer cavities than the first farming communities. But that didn't mean their teeth never hurt. In fact, they faced a completely different set of problems.

[00:01:40]Imagine chewing tough meat, dry roots, nuts, and wild plants every single day.

[00:01:46]Food that's often mixed with tiny grains of sand and bits of grit. Your teeth never get a break. Day after day, year after year, slowly the enamel begins to wear away. Sometimes, so much that the sensitive inner layer of the tooth becomes exposed. Now, all it takes is one sip of cold water and a sharp jolt of pain shoots through your jaw. But, that wasn't even the worst part. A tooth could crack while you were eating. Food would get trapped between your teeth.

[00:02:14]Your gums would become inflamed.

[00:02:16]Bacteria would work their way deeper and deeper. And suddenly, a simple toothache could turn into a serious infection. For a modern person, that's a reason to call the dentist. For an ancient human, it could be life-threatening. If you can't eat properly, you grow weaker. Hunting becomes harder. Protecting your tribe becomes harder. Even surviving the next winter becomes harder. That's why a toothache wasn't just a matter of comfort. It was a matter of survival.

[00:02:44]And our ancestors weren't willing to simply endure it. They began searching for ways to fight the pain. When a tooth started to hurt, people almost never pulled it right away. That was the last resort. First, they did everything they could to save it. And surprisingly, some of their methods actually worked.

[00:03:00]Thousands of years of trial and error taught people one simple lesson. Chew certain plants and the pain would ease.

[00:03:08]Chew others and nothing changed. Of course, they had no idea what bacteria were. They didn't understand inflammation. But, they knew what worked. If a particular plant let someone eat without agony again, they remembered it. Today, scientists know that some of those plants really did contain natural compounds that reduce inflammation and dull pain. Take willow bark, for example. People were using it long before the invention of writing.

[00:03:33]Thousands of years later, one of the compounds found in willow bark led to the development of one of the world's most famous painkillers, aspirin. But, plants weren't their only solution.

[00:03:43]Archaeologists have found evidence that some people tried cleaning damaged teeth with thin wooden sticks, animal bones, and other simple tools. They were probably trying to remove bits of food trapped around the tooth, food that made the inflammation even worse. Sometimes it actually helped, but once the infection reached the nerve, no plant could stop it anymore. The pain became constant. Sleep became almost impossible. Eating became almost impossible. And at that point, there was only one option left to do the one thing everyone dreaded. But this is where the story takes a completely unexpected turn because some ancient people came up with a solution that still seems almost unbelievable today. For a long time, people believed that real dentistry was a relatively modern invention. Then archaeologists made a discovery that completely changed that story. While excavating an ancient settlement in what is now Pakistan, they uncovered human remains dating back about 9,000 years.

[00:04:42]At first, nothing seemed unusual until they examined the teeth. Several molars contained almost perfectly round holes.

[00:04:49]At first, researchers assumed they were accidental damage, but a closer look under the microscope revealed something very different. The holes had been drilled on purpose while the people were still alive. The marks inside the holes showed they had been made with tiny flint drill bits, almost identical to the ones craftsmen of the time used to make stone beads. That means people were already trying to treat teeth, not just pull them out. No electricity, no metal instruments, no anesthesia, just stone, patience, and an overwhelming desire to make the pain stop. The most remarkable part? Some of those patients lived for many years after the procedure. We know because their teeth continued to wear down after they had been drilled. In other words, the treatment actually worked. Of course, it didn't save every tooth. If the infection had spread too far, extraction was still the only option. But the fact that they tried to save the tooth at all tells us something remarkable. Even thousands of years ago, people understood a principle that every dentist still lives by today. It's always better to save a tooth than to lose it forever. And yet, one terrifying question remained. What happened when nothing worked anymore? If plants didn't help, if cleaning the tooth didn't help, if even drilling failed, there was only one option left, extraction. Today, a dentist numbs your gums in just a few minutes, then carefully removes the damaged tooth with sterile instruments.

[00:06:10]But thousands of years ago, none of that existed. No anesthesia, no antibiotics, no guarantee you'd even survive the procedure.

[00:06:19]And yet, people still took the risk because the alternative was even worse.

[00:06:24]If the infection didn't go away, eating became harder and harder. Every bite was agonizing. The body grew weaker, hunting became harder, enduring the cold became harder, protecting your tribe became harder.

[00:06:38]But the greatest danger wasn't the pain, it was the infection. Archaeologists have uncovered ancient skulls where dental abscesses had literally eaten away at the bone. Some of those people survived for years, but in many cases, the infection kept spreading. In a world without antibiotics, even a small dental infection could become fatal. That's why ancient people were willing to endure a level of pain that's almost impossible for us to imagine today because to them, a bad tooth wasn't just a source of discomfort. It could determine whether they lived to see the next winter.

[00:07:11]Today, many of us put off going to the dentist. We hope the pain will just go away on its own. We delay making an appointment for another week, sometimes another month. But when you look at human history, you realize just how lucky we are to be living today. Tens of thousands of years ago, people couldn't just open a map, find the nearest dental clinic, and book an appointment. They had to search for answers in nature, learn through trial and error, invent the very first dental tools, and even drill teeth with stone bits thousands of years before modern medicine existed.

[00:07:45]Every discovery was another step forward, a step that eventually led to anesthesia, sterile instruments, fillings, and the dentistry we know today. So, the next time you're sitting in a dentist's chair and you hear the sound of the drill, remember one simple thing. Not so long ago, in the grand timeline of human history, the only alternative was a stone tool, someone else's hands, and no anesthesia at all.

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