Even today, many people dread a trip to the dentist, but in the Middle Ages, it was far worse—no anesthesia, no advanced tools, and often a visit to the local barber-surgeon or even a blacksmith.

The communities of bacteria that live in our mouths have changed drastically since the Middle Ages, according to a new study of remains buried in a medieval Danish cemetery. And it turns out that some ...

Fossilized dental calculi coat the teeth of a jaw dating back to about A.D. 1100, found at a medieval site in Dalheim, Germany.Christina Warriner Let plaque sit on your teeth, and it will harden into ...

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Learn more about a new technology that is turning ancient teeth into one of archaeology’s most powerful tools. For decades, archaeologists have relied on chemical signatures locked inside ancient ...

Tiny particles of the precious pigment lapis lazuli found in the teeth of a medieval woman suggest she was a scribe producing high-quality illustrated manuscripts. The discovery adds to evidence that ...

A study has, for the first time, identified minute traces of broomcorn millet consumption directly from human dental calculus, offering an unprecedented window into medieval diets and expanding the ...

Think of medieval England and you are likely to conjure up an image of a wizened hag with black stumps for teeth. But although that might have been the unfortunate state of some people's teeth, others ...