Hacker News Reader

When your diet is mostly meat based, and some foraged greens and rare fruit, it is not the ideal environment to feed the process that creates cavities. Also, I'd imagine tooth extraction predates a lot of modern history, which may skew results, but that is just a guess on my part.

View on HN

I figured it’s that they ate all the animal. They always boiled the bones and that strengthened their teeth.

I bet if you look at ancient people in tropical areas they had less teeth as well as less need for them.

Interesting, I would assume that prehistoric times required "perfect" teeth (and even overall geometry and jaw structure). You need a high quality grinding / cutting tool to rip meat easily.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com