Strange world

Published on Tuesday 2 December 2008 21:34

DON'T BRUSH YOUR TEETH

NOT brushing your teeth could prove a great boon to science. Thanks to poor dental hygiene in the remote past, archeologists have discovered what people ate thousands of years ago in what is now Peru.

Dental plaque scraped from the teeth of people who lived 9,200 years ago has revealed traces of cultivated crops, including marrow and beans. They also ate peanuts and a local fruit known as pacay, according to Dolores Piperno, of the US Museum of Natural History.

She studied 39 teeth from eight individuals found in Peru's Nanchoc Valley. The teeth were uncovered in the remains of round house structures in a settlement dated to 9,200 to 5,500 years ago.

"Some teeth were dirtier than others. We found starch grains on most of the teeth. About a third of the teeth contained large numbers of starch grains," Ms Piperno said.

The teeth study indicates that the diet of the ancient Peruvians contained cultivated crops and was stable over time. Some of the grains had been cooked.

The researchers say future analysis of starch grains from teeth could lead to other findings about ancient people, perhaps showing a difference in diet between Neanderthals and early modern humans.