Vikings decorate their front teeth

Viking warriors may have carved out deep trenches on their teeth to prove their rank or military position.

Researcher Caroline Arcini, from Sweden's National Heritage Committee, analyzed 557 skeletons taken from the Swedish Viking's large cemetery and found that about 10% of men, without women, brought Horizontal groove on upper incisors.

These traces are cut deep into the enamel, consisting of 2 or 3 meticulously carved traces. Arcini said that these trenches could mark it as someone from a certain group of merchants or warriors, or to validate the ability to endure pain. Most men who carry this mark are very young, but do not have any obvious wounds or have artifacts attached to the skeleton. So the exact reason for these traces is still mysterious.

This is the first case of grinding teeth known in Europe, but it was a popular activity in the Americas from 800 to 1050 AD. Because these skeletons are at the same time, this raises the possibility that the Vikings imitated this procedure in their travels. Arcini hopes to discover how the procedure for grinding teeth grows and spreads.