Dental Caries and Its Story Through Time

Dental caries is the process of demineralisation of the hard dental tissues that is caused by some of the bacteries in the mouth with the existance of specific factors. Diathesis of the individuals is stated as caries risk and there is a lot of parameters to estimate this risk. Dental anthropology is a field of inquiry to examine and evaluate the findings which are obtained by researching modern or ancient population’s teeth or jaws. Paleodontology division of dental anthropology is focused on the ancient populations teeth and jaw system, oral health and dental diesases. From first hominids up to present, it is supposed that dental caries have been existed. But during this long time human’s dietary habits was changed and this affected the prevalence of dental caries. During the Paleolithic ve Mesolitic periods, frequency of dental caries was very low but as a result of starting agricultural activities, dental caries prevalence become higher. Milestones such as inventing processed sugar or Industrial Revolution, increased the frequency of the caries extremely high levels. Today we see higher caries rates at the poor or developing country in contradistriction to low caries rates in the rich and developed countries. By the help of the preventive dentistry, prevalence of dental caries has started to decrease