This isn’t universally true. There were less incidences of general tooth decay due to different microflora than we have now, but people absolutely still got dental issues that would result in systemic infections and death.
Sure. Tropical people have always had fruit, some had sugar cane. People fought and their teeth were damaged
But dental cavities and abscesses are caused by sugar in your mouth, and bread has always been good at getting stuck between people’s teeth, while their saliva converts the starches to sugars
Archaeologists determine whether a skeleton came from a hunter gatherer or a settled farmer by their teeth
Microflora in your mouth - perhaps they did have different, there’s no evidence, but if so I would guess that one’s mouth microflora changes depending on what one eats
Note that the process that damages teeth is fermentation - where sugar is fermented, liberating energy, carbonic acid. That doesn’t happen in the absence of sugar that persists in your mouth
Slightly deeper than normal scratch? Massive infection and death
get a cavity? hope you enjoy slow, painful decay
Luckily they didn’t, until they invented grain farming and storage and bread every day
Hunter gatherers before 10k years ago (before Egypt learnt to farm) had great teeth
This isn’t universally true. There were less incidences of general tooth decay due to different microflora than we have now, but people absolutely still got dental issues that would result in systemic infections and death.
Sure. Tropical people have always had fruit, some had sugar cane. People fought and their teeth were damaged
But dental cavities and abscesses are caused by sugar in your mouth, and bread has always been good at getting stuck between people’s teeth, while their saliva converts the starches to sugars
Archaeologists determine whether a skeleton came from a hunter gatherer or a settled farmer by their teeth
Microflora in your mouth - perhaps they did have different, there’s no evidence, but if so I would guess that one’s mouth microflora changes depending on what one eats
Note that the process that damages teeth is fermentation - where sugar is fermented, liberating energy, carbonic acid. That doesn’t happen in the absence of sugar that persists in your mouth