Preagricultural People Had Cavities, Too

This is Scientific American 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber.This'll just take a minute.
The warm, moist environment of your mouth makes it a great place for bacteria, some of which keep busy causing cavities.
Such dental difficulty was thought to have really taken off when we switched from hunting-gathering to agriculture and had a ready supply of farmed, fermentable carbohydrates.
Now research shows that at least some pre-agricultural humans also had a bad case of tooth decay.
The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
One hunter–gatherer site in Morocco called Grotte de Pigeons was a key ritual and economic center.
The deposits there date to some 15 thousand years ago and are incredibly dry.
So organic material, including bones and charred plant remains, are well-preserved.
Researchers found leftover pine nuts, juniper, pistachio, wild oats, and particularly popular carbohydrate-rich acorns.
Eaten raw or as flour, acorns can stick in teeth.
The foodstuff makes a happy home for acid-loving bacteria that cause cavities.
The scientists also analyzed teeth from 52 partial or complete jaws.
They found that more than half the teeth showed signs of lesions.
And only three of the adults were cavity-free.
Thousands of years before folks in the area learned to farm.
Thanks for the minute, for Scientific American 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber.