Pre-dentistry, a bunch of your teeth would have fallen out before your wisdom teeth came in. There would have been space for the wisdom teeth so they wouldn’t need to come in sideways.
they’ve been shrinking as we evolvedchanged our diet
No genetic changes (evolution) happened. If as children we ate only very tough meat and lots of chewy vegetables - no bread or rice or potato softness - our same genetics would result in much larger adult jaws.
Are you sure about that? We lost so many teeth after the industrialisation of sugar production (machines and slavery) but I’m not sure how bad it was before then.
Teeth used to get cleaned by means of chewing harder food regularly, and they needed less cleaning to start with due to a lot less sugar in those foods though
So I searched it up. Food that was more abrasive, no refined carbs, more fibrous, more meat, less grain, more tannins. And ancient toothbrushes from frayed twigs, which also contained natural antimicrobials!
And our teeth really went downhill after we started reproducing without the quality check provided by survival of the fittest. The remains of hunter gatherers generally have very nice teeth.
There seems to be a genetic variation that eliminates some or all wisdom teeth. It arose in Asia so long ago that the people who populated North and South America also had it. And in most populations it is still not very prevalent (less than 50%). Despite having been around for ages.
Pre-dentistry, a bunch of your teeth would have fallen out before your wisdom teeth came in. There would have been space for the wisdom teeth so they wouldn’t need to come in sideways.
We used to have larger mouths, they’ve been shrinking as we evolved
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_jaw_shrinkage
No genetic changes (evolution) happened. If as children we ate only very tough meat and lots of chewy vegetables - no bread or rice or potato softness - our same genetics would result in much larger adult jaws.
Gonna feed my kid nothing but well-done steaks and tree bark for the jaw gainz.
Are you sure about that? We lost so many teeth after the industrialisation of sugar production (machines and slavery) but I’m not sure how bad it was before then.
Not cleaning teeth is pretty bad for teeth.
Teeth used to get cleaned by means of chewing harder food regularly, and they needed less cleaning to start with due to a lot less sugar in those foods though
So I searched it up. Food that was more abrasive, no refined carbs, more fibrous, more meat, less grain, more tannins. And ancient toothbrushes from frayed twigs, which also contained natural antimicrobials!
Thanks for prompting this educational exchange!
Also, for example in medieval times, they did clean teeth with herbs and stuff.
And our teeth really went downhill after we started reproducing without the quality check provided by survival of the fittest. The remains of hunter gatherers generally have very nice teeth.
Nah.
There seems to be a genetic variation that eliminates some or all wisdom teeth. It arose in Asia so long ago that the people who populated North and South America also had it. And in most populations it is still not very prevalent (less than 50%). Despite having been around for ages.
My mom only had the lower two wisdom teeth, none on top.