Respiratory irritants have been found on 400,000-year-old teeth discovered in Qesem Cave, Israel.
Possible respiratory irritants, including traces of charcoal—manmade environmental pollution—found in the dental calculus, may have resulted from smoke inhalation from indoor fires used for roasting meat on a daily basis. This earliest direct evidence for inhaled environmental pollution may well have had a deleterious effect on the health of these early humans.
“Human teeth of this age have never been studied before for dental calculus, and we had very low expectations because of the age of the plaque,” said Prof. Gopher. “However, our international collaborators, using a combination of methods, found many materials entrapped within the calculus. Because the cave was sealed for 200,000 years, everything, including the teeth and its calculus, were preserved exceedingly well.”
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Story: Phys.org | Photo: Israel Hershkovitz, Tel Aviv University
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