A Skull with Scalloped Teeth
Fact or Fiction?

Fact or Fiction? Do people file down their teeth for beauty or can there be another reason? Fact: A skull with scalloped teeth was found in the small museum of Tonala, México. Each tooth was gleaming white and scalloped on the bottom edge. Every student of anthropology or archaeology knows without a doubt that cannibals and other aborigine types file down their teeth for beauty. This is done even today on islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Some chew betel leaves which is a narcotic of sorts that turns the mouth red. In Peru, the people chew quinoa, also known as China - also Kina kina (bark) Peruvian for quinine Bark of Barks. ( Oxford English Dictionary, II, p. 351.)

Armed with the proven research above, few students of anthropology or archaeology, remember back to their younger days when they had to take basic health courses in their grade and high schools. In those classes, the teeth were defined as having an outer layer of enamel, a layer of dentin, with pulp in the middle where the nerve resides. A short layer of cementum holds the tooth in place within the gums.

What we do not want to know or remember is that if the enamel is damaged, the dentin begins to form caries (cavities) and before long there are toothaches. Some are more severe than others. A narcotic such as betel leaves, or quinoa would be beneficial in preventing pain, but such folk remedies do not prevent cavities from growing larger or teeth from rotting out completely. It is very doubtful that beauty is the main purpose of filing down the teeth.

It is more probably that the teeth of youngsters begin to acquire cavities and the only way the medicine men have of "curing" the cause of cavities is just as dentists today cure them: by cleaning out the diseased sections. If it means making all the teeth sharp and pointed, so be it. Jade was used to filled (and decorate) living teeth. I have seen abalone shell used as a successful tooth replacement. Yet pretty scalloped teeth on skulls do not fit the criteria for healthy living teeth.

First: This method is not used when a person is alive.

Second: Scallops and other decorative edges are created

after the skull has been recovered from the graves and cleaned.

Third: It was an honorable way to honor the dead of a loved one

by having the skull cleaned, painted and its teeth made

even more beautiful by filing or scalloping the edges.

Can we dare assume that filing the teeth for beauty during one's lifetime is a fictional aspect of primitive dentistry? The factual may have been a necessity more than appearance, except when a cavity was filled with jade or gold. However, filing down the teeth after death was probably an honorable trade in ancient times.