Photo: Ashish_Premier · CC BY-SA 3.0
Excavation · c. 7000–5500 BCE; published 2006

The drilled teeth of Mehrgarh

Found
Neolithic graveyard at Mehrgarh, Kachi plain, Balochistan (Pakistan); the site was excavated by the French mission under Jean-François Jarrige from 1974
Kept at
Skeletal collection of the Mehrgarh excavations; present custody not confirmed here

Eleven molar crowns from nine adults with neat holes drilled into them, the earliest evidence of dentistry on living people anywhere.

What it says

The holes are round, 1.3 to 3.5 mm across, and up to 3.5 mm deep. Wear on their edges shows the people kept chewing after the drilling, so it was done while they were alive. The same village made beads with flint drill-heads, and the dentists probably used the bow-drill of the bead-makers.

What it proves

It shows the first farmers at the foot of the Bolan pass practising a skilled medicine some 9,000 years ago.

Evidence for