Ancient people also had orthodontic correction

Ancient teeth

Thousands of years before the movie stars enhanced their beauty by modifying their teeth, the ancient Mexicans knew how to install dentures in rituals.

Yesterday, US researchers said they found a 4,500-year-old burial site in Mexico that has the oldest evidence of orthodontics in the Americas.

The upper incisors of the dead have been thinned to attach to an animal's teeth, be it wolf or black leopard teeth, for ritual purposes.

Such corrective procedures, often using predatory teeth, became more popular in the following centuries in the Mayan civilization. But this is the oldest evidence ever known.

The dead, aged 28 to 32, may not have been able to bite with their dentures, but have been well fortified. The body shows that he does not have to do heavy work, so can be an important figure in society.

" The teeth that are so much grinding cause the pulp to become exposed and lead to infection ," said Tricia Gabany-Guerrero, an archaeologist at the University of Connecticut in the US.

In addition, the group also found fragments of skulls and bones of hands and feet. The cause of death has not been clearly defined.

MT