Ancient Roots
Anthropologist Leslea Hlusko of the University of Illinois set out to
substantiate her claim that our earliest ancestors may already have
realized the importance of good oral hygiene. Paleontologists have examined
human remains as far back as Homo erectus and, in doing so, have noted
strange grooves near the gum lines. Hlusko believed that these grooves were
evidence of humans using tooth-picking tools to clean their teeth.
She proved her hypothesis by spending eight hours rubbing samples of baboon
and human teeth with grass stalks that were made in part of hard abrasive
silica. She found that the wear markings created by the rubbings matched
those of the fossils. The markings paleontologists had found dated back as
far as 1.8 million years. Hlusko's findings conclude that tooth-picking is
one of the oldest human habits of which there is physical evidence, the
first sign of oral hygiene.