Oral Health From Dental Paleopathology

Since when have humans been afflicted with dental diseases? It is not easy to find an answer to this question. There are two main methods to examine what types of disease our ancestors suffered. One method involves the history of medicine or a study called “medical history,” which mainly examines pathologies written in ancient documents and ancient writings and attempts to identify the diseases. Michinaga Fujiwara was a powerful individual in the Heian period of Japan (794-1192 AD) [1]. He was speculated to have died of complications of diabetes based on the records of his pathology in the literature. This type of finding is the result of research in the history of medicine (a study of medical history). The other method involves a field of study in physical anthropology called “paleopathology,” in which the author of this paper specializes. In paleopathology, the research materials are hard tissues such as bones and teeth from humans of ancient times and obtained from archeological excavations (needless to say, the soft tissues have long decomposed and returned to soil). Thus, it is possible to learn about the frequency of certain diseases in the past in groups of people and about the true pathology at the time of death. In this paper, a few dental diseases were interpreted from the perspective of an anthropologist who handles ancient human skeletal remains. These diseases can be indicators of modern oral health.