Lost Homo Erectus tooth found in Sweden

A 500,000-year-old teeth belonging to “Peking Man” have been found in unpacked boxes from Otto Zdansky’s expedition to the caves of Zhoukoudian near Beijing in the 1920s.

‘It is a spectacular find’, says Per Ahlberg. ‘We can see numerous details that tell us about this individual’s life. The crown of the tooth is relatively small, which indicates that it belonged to a woman. The tooth is quite worn, so the individual must have been quite old when she died. In addition, two large chips have been knocked out of the enamel, as if hit by something, or perhaps by biting into something really hard such as a bone or a hard nut. At least one of the chips was old when the individual died, since it is partly worn down.

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Story: Uppsala University | Photo: Uppsala University