Elsevier

HOMO

Volume 63, Issue 2, April 2012, Pages 110-113
HOMO

Comment: Low dental caries rate in Neandertals: The result of diet or the oral flora composition?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jchb.2012.02.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Dental caries is an infectious disease caused by oral acidophilic bacteria feeding on fermentable sugars, e.g. Streptococcus mutans. The frequency of dental caries in Neandertals was very low. This was usually explained as the result of a low-sugar diet. Recent research, however, revealed some regional differences between European and Near Eastern Neandertals, with the latter consuming considerable amounts of plants including highly cariogenic dates. This discovery, compared with the results of research on genetic diversity of S. mutans, may suggest that this species, and perhaps other most virulent species, were absent in the oral flora of Neandertals.

Section snippets

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to David Beighton, Maciej Henneberg, Friedrich Rösing and Roger Seiler for constructive comments to early versions of this brief note and to Matt Williams for language correction.

References (46)

  • S. Blau

    The people at Sharm: an analysis of the archaeological human skeletal remains

    Arab. Archaeol. Epigr.

    (1999)
  • S.B. Boydstun et al.

    Dental caries in the Qafzeh 3 early modern human

    Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

    (1988)
  • R.A. Burne

    Oral streptococci—products of their environment

    J. Dent. Res.

    (1998)
  • R.C. Caldwell

    Physical properties of foods and their caries-producing potential

    J. Dent. Res.

    (1970)
  • P.W. Caufield et al.

    Population structure of plasmid-containing strains of Streptococcus mutans, a member of the human indigenous biota

    J. Bacteriol.

    (2007)
  • M.J. Collins et al.

    Ancient starch: cooked or just old?

    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

    (2011)
  • L. Diancourt et al.

    Multilocus sequence typing of Lactobacillus casei reveals a clonal population structure with low levels of homologous recombination

    Appl. Environ. Microbiol.

    (2007)
  • T. Do et al.

    Generation of diversity in Streptococcus mutans genes demonstrated by MLST

    PLoS ONE

    (2010)
  • L. Fiorenza et al.

    Molar macrowear reveals Neanderthal eco-geographic dietary variation

    PLoS ONE

    (2011)
  • D. Guatelli-Steinberg et al.

    Prevalence and the duration of linear enamel hypoplasia: a comparative study of Neandertals and Inuit foragers

    J. Hum. Evol.

    (2004)
  • R. Harris et al.

    Risk factors for dental caries in young children a systematic review of the literature

    Community Dent. Health

    (2004)
  • R. Hashim et al.

    Diet and caries experience among preschool children in Ajman, United Arab Emirates

    Eur. J. Oral Sci.

    (2009)
  • A.G. Henry et al.

    Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets (Shanidar III, Iraq; Spy I and II, Belgium)

    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

    (2011)

    • Cited by (0)

    View full text
    Copyright © 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.