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dmullaney t1_jdq6trl wrote

Most of them didn't. But they also didn't eat a lot of refined sugars. It's genuinely kinda shocking how big a difference a low sugar diet makes to your dental health. Of course they also didn't live as long so their adult teeth only really needed to get them through a couple of decades

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williamsonny t1_jdqdr56 wrote

This doesn’t answer your question but you may find it interesting. The first recorded form of dental care dates back to around 5000 BC, when Egyptians used a mixture of crushed eggshells, animal hooves, and myrrh to create a toothpaste.

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celo753 t1_jdqjj7a wrote

They didn't, and they didn't really need to.

You can still see it in tribal populations today. They don't care for their teeth at all, yet they've got perfect teeth, better than ours.

That's because their diet is very low on refined sugars, and composed mostly of fruits, vegetables and fish, with some occasional red meat.

It also reflects on their skin. They have smooth lively skin free of acne, despite not using any skin care products. That's also due to lower presence of sugars in their diet, and also because their culture doesn't drink alcohol.

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Eomycota t1_jdqp86c wrote

They did! Atleast in some population, but not to the same extend as we do. There were teeths that had sign of abrasion that were not due to food or foreign particle, but most likely from tooth pick. There are even dental procedure that were perform to remove cavities. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4504065/

Makeshift tooth brush from twig are used in a variety of place and, while there are not evidence, it would not be surprising if people in the past did use those.

At last, people were less prone to dental cavities, maybe 3% to 15% of teeths had cavities. Their overall dental health was just much better than ours.

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CharlieKoffing t1_jdr382g wrote

Replying to dmullaney (#2,367,206)

This is common misconception. Average lifespans were lower back then because of a high infant mortality rate. When people die survive adolescence, they actually survived to 60 and beyond fairly regularly.

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williamsonny t1_jds72wh wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#2,368,065)

Also, unfortunately: The ancient Greeks and Romans cleaned and whitened their smiles by rubbing their teeth with charcoal and a mixture of honey and vinegar, followe by a chaser of urine as a mouth rinse. Sorry about that.

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VeronicaWaldorf t1_jdsn712 wrote

You didn’t really need dental care like you need it today. First of all, there was not a lot of sugar. And honestly that’s the main thing. If you have a diet that’s super high and carbohydrates. It’s generally not great for your teeth.

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celo753 t1_jdtgg2s wrote

Replying to The_Pale_Hound (#2,381,556)

They did in a few cultures. But most cultures were not consuming rice and bread 10.000 years ago.

The ones that did have sugary diets many thousands of years ago, like the egyptians, also happen to be the ones who practiced early forms of dental care.

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