Ancient Dentists

It appears that archaeologists have found evidence of sophisticated dentistry as long ago as 7000 BC. That's 4000 years before historians thought dentistry was invented. Shows what they know.

Assuming these dates are correct (being uncalibrated carbon-14 estimates), we apparently had dentists before we had civilization! Man was squirming in the dentist's chair before the known domestication of cattle or chickens, the building of the pyramids or Stonehenge, or the invention of the plough, irrigation, cloth, beer, roads, writing, the horse cart, glass, money, or waiting rooms. Before all of these things, people were getting their teeth drilled by strangely talkative torturers. And according to the article, these holes were precise and well performed on difficult to reach teeth.

So often we want to dismiss ancient man as primitive. But our knowledge of ancient history is so limited, how can we say what they didn't have? We can only claim to lack evidence of these people's knowledge and technology. And the absence of evidence is not evidence for absence.