[Dietary habits and the state of the human oral cavity in the prehistoric age].

Abstract

This is an age-by-age summation of literature on over 100 sites (of more than 250 excavated prehistoric ruins on the Korean Peninsula: about 160 places in South Korea--Paleolithic Age 15, Neolithic Age 21, Bronze Age 90 and Iron Age 35--and about 90 places in North Korea) which produced dietary-habit-related devices such as hunting tools, fishing instruments, farming equipments, tools of daily life, and human bones and teeth. 1) Various dietary-habit-related Old Stone-Age tools, instruments and other items were found. Among them were stone axes, stone hand axes, fish spears and hooks made of bone or horn, stone blades, stone scrapers and stone drills believed to have been used in daily life, and charcoal and sites of furnaces used for cooking. Furthermore, it was found that there were severe dental abrasions and dental caries among the inhabitants of the Korean Peninsula in the Old Stone Age. 2) Some evidences were found which lead us to believe that hunting was practiced with stone arrowheads in the New Stone Age. Stone net sinkers, which is the evidence of the use of fish nets, were also found. In addition, farming stone tools and charred cereals, both of which date back to the latter part of this period, were unearthed. Millstones, which began to be used in this age, and livestock bones were found. Where these items were discovered, 23 maxillae and mandibles with teeth and a total of 231 separate teeth of Neolithic period human beings were reported. However, there are no records indicating dental caries, but some records describe severe abrasion.