How often did cavemen get cavities?

There isn't an exact answer to this question, other than less than we deal with now. There are a few reasons for this: 1. Diet - Early man's diet was completely unprocessed and far more fibrous than ours, so the food itself cleaned the teeth. Too... read more

If nothing gets done by the cavemen to address this cavity, the cavity grows bigger and gets into the nerve of the tooth, this will increase the pain level, as now the bacteria has direct access into the blood stream and the rest of the body, the body increases it's pain level to make sure that the cavemen does something about it, pulling it out, getting the cavity out, etc. read more

New research suggests, however, that cavities and other forms of oral disease have been a pain in the mouth for our species for much longer. The rate of cavities in teeth from North African hunter-gatherers more than 14,000 years old was comparable to that of modern industrialized populations chomping on doughnuts and gulping sugary sodas. read more

Cavemen did not have modern diets and had no refined sugar. Eating mostly meat and raw foods, cavities were not a problem, just like they aren't for most animals. Cavemen probably didn't snack too much, as there was not an abundance of food or resources. No snacking and no sugar so, for the most part, cavities were not a problem for cavemen. read more