Posted on 05/20/2009 6:15:25 PM PDT by JoeProBono
The glittering "grills" of some hip-hop stars aren't exactly unprecedented. Sophisticated dentistry allowed Native Americans to add bling to their teeth as far back as 2,500 years ago, a new study says.
Ancient peoples of southern North America went to "dentists"—among the earliest known—to beautify their chompers with notches, grooves, and semiprecious gems, according to a recent analysis of thousands of teeth examined from collections in Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (such as the skull above, found in Chiapas, Mexico).
Scientists don't know the origin of most of the teeth in the collections, which belonged to people living throughout the region, called Mesoamerica, before the Spanish conquests of the 1500s.
But it's clear that people—mostly men—from nearly all walks of life opted for the look, noted José Concepción Jiménez, an anthropologist at the institute, which recently announced the findings.
"They were not marks of social class" but instead meant for pure decoration, he commented in an e-mail interview conducted in Spanish.
Amazing!
Fo’shizzle
That crap looks nasty if you ask me.
The only way I can believe that is if the teeth were already dead due to improper brushing and lack of dental floss. To think that such gems were inserted into healthy teeth with healthy nerves is beyond my comprehension. All I can think of is pain, and lots of it........Ahhhhhhhhhh!
That’s amazing. He isn’t missing any teeth either.
That’s some NASTY $hit! Ick! Imagine kissing THAT! Argh!
|
|
|||
Gods |
Sure, but did they have a New York brim? Thanks JPB. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
Those “monkeys” were pretty “advanced”.
LOL!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.