Why Do We Still Have Wisdom Teeth?

Every year, millions of people pay to have teeth removed that their own body grew. So why do we still have wisdom teeth? The answer is hidden in the skulls of our ancestors, who rarely had crooked teeth at all. In this video we go back millions of years: Nutcracker Man and his giant molars, Neanderthals using their teeth as a third hand, the oldest toothpicks, how fire and farming slowly shrank the human jaw, the 14,000-year-old tooth that shows the world's first dentist, and 9,000-year-old drilled teeth from Pakistan. Chapters 0:00 Why do we still have wisdom teeth? 0:58 A lifetime of tough food 1:15 Nutcracker Man 1:38 Neanderthals: teeth as a third hand 1:58 Wisdom teeth as spare parts 2:24 The oldest toothpicks 2:39 Your jaw grows the way you chew 3:21 Fire changed our faces 3:55 Farming and the evolutionary mismatch 4:41 Why the wisdom teeth get stuck 4:54 Cavities arrive 5:32 What ancient plaque reveals 5:57 The world's first dentist 6:35 The last 200 years 7:05 When a wisdom tooth could kill 7:30 Are wisdom teeth disappearing? 7:46 So what now? Sources Cerling et al. (2011). Diet of Paranthropus boisei in the early Pleistocene of East Africa. PNAS. Lozano et al. (2009). Right-handedness of Homo heidelbergensis from Sima de los Huesos. Journal of Human Evolution. Ungar et al. (2001). Toothpick grooves in fossil hominin teeth. Journal of Human Evolution. Lieberman et al. (2004). Effects of food processing on masticatory strain and craniofacial growth in a retrognathic face (hyrax study). Journal of Human Evolution. von Cramon-Taubadel (2011). Global human mandibular variation reflects differences in agricultural and hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies. PNAS. Organ et al. (2011). Phylogenetic rate shifts in feeding time during the evolution of Homo. PNAS. Seiler et al. (2013). Oral pathologies of the Neolithic Iceman. European Journal of Oral Sciences. Humphrey et al. (2014). Earliest evidence for caries and exploitation of starchy plant foods in Pleistocene hunter-gatherers from Morocco. PNAS. Hardy et al. (2012). Neanderthal medics? Evidence for food, cooking, and medicinal plants entrapped in dental calculus. Naturwissenschaften. Oxilia et al. (2015). Earliest evidence of dental caries manipulation in the Late Upper Palaeolithic (Villabruna). Scientific Reports. Coppa et al. (2006). Early Neolithic tradition of dentistry (Mehrgarh). Nature. Carter & Worthington (2015). Morphologic and demographic predictors of third molar agenesis. Journal of Dental Research. London Bills of Mortality, 17th century. #wisdomteeth #humanevolution #ancienthumans