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POLAND

July/August 2021

JA21 ATW PolandPOLAND: Good oral hygiene was not invented by modern-day dentists, but rather has been practiced for tens of thousands of years—and not just by Homo sapiens. Enhanced imaging of a 46,000-year-old Neanderthal tooth recovered from Stajnia Cave revealed that the upper premolar had a distinctive groove worn into it. This was likely caused by a thin cylindrical object such as a bone or wooden toothpick that was used repeatedly to clean the area and remove food residue.