Ötzi had poor dental condition

The face of Ötzi, the 5,300-year
old mummy from the Alps. (Picture
from: http://www.livescience.com/)

The foods that dominated rich in starch makes Ötzi the Iceman had bad teeth condition. The results of the researcher team from the Centre for Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and scientists from different countries, revealed that man from the Neolithic period have problems periodontitis, tooth decay, and tooth decay because of an accident.

The latest scientific findings provide interesting information about Ötzi diet, the human from the time of 3300 BC were found frozen to death in Schnalstal glacier in the Alps, Italy. Ötzi's dental conditions also reveals the evolution of oral medical pathology.

This is the the Iceman skull
seen from the front. The genetic 
increased distance between the 
central front teeth as well as the 
severe dental abrasion can be 
seen, which led to a loss of more 
than half of the crowns in the front. 
(Picture from: http://www.eurekalert.org/)

The iceman mummy showed various oral diseases and tooth which is still infect humans. Frank Ruhli, the researcher who led the study, explained that Ötzi suffered from severe dental erosion as well as some of his teeth suggests the onset of the hole.

Although various researches have been done on the mummy for more than 20 years, researchers rarely examine Ötzi teeth. Roger Seiler, a dentist from the Centre for Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich, Ötzi dental check with the latest computer tomography. "The loss of periodontium (tissues supporting the teeth) is a common disease, and is seen also in the stone age and the skull of Egyptian mummy," he said.

This is the view of the right side of
the rows of teeth (3D reconstruction)
-- arrow pointing right: deep carious
lesions, arrow pointing left: severe
severe dental abrasion can be seen, 
bone loss around the molars. 
(Picture from: http://www.eurekalert.org/)

Three-dimensional computed tomography reconstructions also indicate the iceman alveolar, and showed how he suffered severe periodontitis, the inflammation and infection of the tissues periodontium.

Although Ötzi seems to rarely clean teeth, their diet also affects the condition of the teeth. Tooth decay suggests that the iceman foods rich in starch, such as bread and cereal porridge commonly consumed in the Neolithic period because of the time humans began farming. The food that they consume is also very abrasive due to contaminants and the rest of the mill, as seen abrasions on Ötzi the tooth surface.

The front teeth damage and other injuries prove that his hard life at that time. One of his front teeth had mechanical trauma, which looks at changes in tooth color. The molar teeth are also broken, it is likely due to chewing something, it could be a small stone in the cereal porridge. (Jump to Ötzi's Related-Part). *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | THE LOCAL | EUREKALERT! | TJANDRA DEWI | KORAN TEMPO 4197]
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