Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Food and respiratory irritants trapped in the dental tartar of 400,000 year old teeth discovered in Israel represent the earliest known direct evidence of inhaled environmental pollution, according researchers from American Friends of Tel Aviv University (AFTAU) and their colleagues report in a new study.
The irritants were discovered in the dental calculus of teeth discovered at the Qesem Cave site near Tel Aviv, and included traces of charcoal believed to have been the result of inhaled smoke originating from indoor fires used by late Lower Paleolithic period people to roast meat.
The research team, which also includes scholars from the UK, Spain and Australia, believe that this is the earliest direct evidence of manmade environmental pollution and may have adversely affected the health of these early humans. They also believe that the findings provide evidence of what early Palaeolithic people ate and the air quality of their Qesem Cave home.
Charcoal originated from the fires of indoor barbecues
“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,” explained Professor Avi Gopher from the AFTAU Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations.
“However,” he added, “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.”
The researchers reported three major discoveries in the analyzed calculus – charcoal produced by indoor fires, evidence of the ingestion of plant-based dietary components, and fibers which could have been used to clean teeth (or which alternately were the remnants of raw materials).
“This is the first evidence that the world’s first indoor BBQs had health-related consequences,” said AFTAU Professor Ran Barkai. “The people who lived in Qesem not only enjoyed the benefits of fire – roasting their meat indoors – but they also had to find a way of controlling the fire – of living with it.”
“This is one of the first, if not the first, cases of manmade pollution on the planet,” he added. “Our findings are rare – there is no other similar discovery from this time period. The charcoal and starch findings give us a more comprehensive idea of how these people lived their lives – and this broader view came directly from their teeth.”
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