CENTRO DI DOCUMENTAZIONE SUI DISPOSITIVI MEDICI

From website Archaeologists say dental calculus holds a trove of data to be studied. By  Anna Nowogrodzki A nuisance to dentists is now a boon for archaeologists. Researchers have successfully sequenced DNA from fossilized plaque on 700-year-old teeth. Solidified plaque—called calculus, tartar, or that chalky stuff the dentist scrapes off—contains a whopping 25 times more DNA than ancient tooth or bone. And, in a paper published in the  American Journal of Physical Anthropology ,  Christina Warinner and colleagues detail how they‘ve used plaque in research, a process that could catch on as a way to gather otherwise unobtainable information about the ancient world.   Go to complete article on Click Here Go to complete article on Click Here

From web site An infected tooth partially cleaned with flint tools represents the oldest known dentistry, says a new international study on a 14,000-year-old molar. A large cavity is seen in the lower right third molar of the Paleolithic man. The find represents the oldest archaeological example of an operative manual intervention on a pathological condition, according to researchers led by Stefano Benazzi, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Bologna. “It predates any undisputed evidence of dental and cranial surgery, currently represented by dental drillings and cranial trephinations dating back to the Mesolithic-Neolithic period, about 9,000-7,000 years ago, “ Benazzi said. Go to complete article>Click Here