This isn't universally true. There were less incidences of general tooth decay due to different microflora than we have now, but people absolutely still got dental issues that would result in systemic infections and death.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Sure. Tropical people have always had fruit, some had sugar cane. People fought and their teeth were damaged

But dental cavities and abscesses are caused by sugar in your mouth, and bread has always been good at getting stuck between people's teeth, while their saliva converts the starches to sugars

Archaeologists determine whether a skeleton came from a hunter gatherer or a settled farmer by their teeth

Microflora in your mouth - perhaps they did have different, there's no evidence, but if so I would guess that one's mouth microflora changes depending on what one eats

Note that the process that damages teeth is fermentation - where sugar is fermented, liberating energy, carbonic acid. That doesn't happen in the absence of sugar that persists in your mouth

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

that one's mouth microflora changes depending on what you eat

Yeah that's what I meant

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So your "their teeth were good due to different microflora" can be simplified to "their teeth were good because they didn't have tooth damaging food"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

The original claim was dental issues were generally a death sentence, which was true whether or not they're more common now.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Until? The “hunter gatherer, then farmer” progression is a story, not reality. People sometimes did one in summer, the other in winter. Or gave up farming when they found nice herds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

i mean sure they didn't have modern medicine, but they were generally in way better health than we are now and still had basic plant medicine.

washing off wounds and wrapping them in medicinal leaves does a lot, and there is archaeological evidence of individuals who were in extremely bad health and yet through care from their tribe they managed to survive for years in such a state.

This idea that hunter-gatherers lived lives of misery and were too dumb to try to prevent bad things is unfortunately very widespread, when the reality is that hunter-gatherers had it about as good as you can expect from living without modern technology.