Ancient microbial DNA on fossil teeth has opened a fresh window on our ancestors, revealing that civilisation has altered our mouth flora for the worse
ALMOST a millennium ago, a middle-aged man was buried in a graveyard in Dalheim, Germany. He had taken some hard knocks in his life – a fist fight had torn incisors from his jaw. And oral hygiene was clearly not a priority: his remaining teeth carried a thick coating of plaque, the gunk that modern people battle with toothbrush and dental floss. We should thank this unknown man for his grim chompers, however, for his dental plaque is now opening a surprising new window to the past. Inside it is a beautifully preserved record of the microbial community in his mouth when he was alive.
We have just begun to understand that the microscopic organisms that live inside and on ...
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