‘Toothpick grooves’ in ancient fossil human teeth may not be from toothpicks after all

By Ian Towle, Research Fellow in Biological Anthropology, Monash University
Luca Fiorenza, Senior Lecturer in Anatomical Sciences, Monash University

For decades, small grooves on ancient human teeth were thought to be evidence of deliberate tool use – people cleaning their teeth with sticks or fibres, or easing gum pain with makeshift “toothpicks”. Some researchers even called it the oldest human habit.

But our new findings, published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology, challenge this long-held idea about human evolution. We found these grooves also appear naturally in wild primates,…

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