Wisdom teeth hurt? Blame ancient ancestors

Shift from hunter-gatherer lifestyle to soft modern diet might be responsible, study finds

Humans might be plagued by wisdom teeth problems today because our ancestors shifted from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a soft modern diet, new research finds.

Scientists are increasingly analyzing how culture interacts with our biology. One key cultural development in human history was the move away from hunting-gathering toward farming, a dietary change that physical anthropologist Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel at the University of Kent in England reasoned might have influenced the anatomy of our faces and jaws.

To find out more, von Cramon-Taubadel investigated museum specimens of skulls from 11 human populations drawn from across the world. Five of these groups primarily had lifestyles based on hunting, gathering or fishing, such as the San Bushmen of Africa or the Inuit of Alaska and Greenland, while the other six relied on agriculture.

The jawbone differences von Cramon-Taubadel saw between populations depended on diet...

Wisdom teeth hurt? Blame ancient ancestors