130,000 year old dentistry

NEANDERTHALS learned to treat painful teeth using bone, wood or grass as toothpicks, experts say.

Grooves carved into the teeth of a Neanderthal alive 130,000 years ago suggest it had been in pain.

The teeth were found near eagle talons cut into the first known jewellery in Krapina, northern Croatia.

Prof David Frayer, of Kansas University, said: “He or she was presumably trying to treat itself... in a way you would expect a modern human to do.”