Slashdot Mirror
Student Finds 5000-Year-Old Chewing Gum
itsthebin writes "Sarah Pickin, 23, found the lump of birch bark tar — complete with neolithic tooth prints — on a dig in Finland. Ms Pickin's tutor at the University of Derby, Professor Trevor Brown, said birch bark tar contained phenols, which are antiseptic compounds. 'It is generally believed that neolithic people found that by chewing this stuff if they had gum infections it helped to treat the condition. It's particularly significant because well-defined tooth imprints were found on the gum which Sarah discovered,' he said. Ms Pickin was on a volunteer program at the Kierikki Centre on the west coast of Finland when she made the find."
Just to be pedantic...
Xylitol is actually a sugar alcohol, not a "true" sugar. Sorbitol is similar. Both are good for you because the bacteria in your teeth try to digest it, but can't actually get any nutrition from it -- so the energy spent trying is wasted.
Here is the photo caption from the article, for those looking for it:
stone age "chewing cum"(about 2/3 down the page)
Dental Carries didn't become common until man started farming cereal grains. As you guessed, cavities became even more common with the introduction of cheap sugar. You may enjoy this article about primitive diets. http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/nast y_brutish_short.html
I wouldn't know if all birches produce xylitol but I guess it's possible if they are related. In Finland sap is collected from both of the common varieties, the silver birch (Betula pendula) and the downy birch (Betula pubescens), of which the latter gives more sap. There is a third native birch variety, the dwarf birch (Betula nana), but it's tiny so it wouldn't be much good for collecting sap.
You can't shut us down! The Internet is about the free exchange and sale of other people's ideas!
In case anyone's interested, there seems to be a nice sap-collecting-howto, with pictures, here.
You can't shut us down! The Internet is about the free exchange and sale of other people's ideas!
Dental Carries didn't become common until man started farming cereal grains^H^H^H^H^H eating well enough to live past 30.
Fixed that for you.
It's 7000 years old.