Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 51 (4) 2023   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2023.51.4.135-141

Annotation:  Early Upper Paleolithic Tubular Beads from the Main Chamber of Denisova Cave Stoilo—A Paleolithic Site in the Southern Angara Region, Siberia Stone Age Ivory Points from the Arctic Zone of Northeast Asia An Early Neolithic Bone and Antler Industry of Rakushechny Yar on the Lower Don: Technological Strat Rock Art of the Ana Zaga Cave Shelter in the Archaeological Landscape of Gobustan, Azerbaijan The Russian Archaeological Project in South America: Principal Findings and Prospects Chronology of Rock Art of the Russian and Mongolian Altai: From the Paleolithic to the Late Middle A Lobed Ware in the Far East from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages Wooden Paddles from the Nizhny Tagil Museum-Reserve of Mining and Metallurgy in the Urals Spatial Distribution of Finds on the Eastern Outskirts of Poltse I, the Amur Region Contents of an Early Byzantine Amphora from Kruglaya Bay, the Black Sea Shift of the Yenisei and Abakan Beds as Reasons for Constructing the Second Abakan Fort in 1707 Corvids in the Buryat Traditional Worldview The Old Believers’ Churchyard: Semiotics of Cultural Space (The Case of the Ust-Tsilma Old Believers A Case of Surgical Treatment of Lower Molars in a Mesolithic Sample from a Cemetery on the Yuzhny Ol Origin of the Andronovans: A Statistical Approach   

A Case of Surgical Treatment of Lower Molars in a Mesolithic Sample
from a Cemetery on the Yuzhny Oleniy Ostrov, Karelia, Russia

A.V. Zubova^{1, 2}, O.L. Pikhur^{3, 4}, V.G. Moiseyev¹, A.A. Malyutina⁵, A.V. Obodovskiy⁶, and O.A. Kalmina⁷

¹Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 3, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia

²Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

³St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, Pr. Dinamo 3, St. Petersburg, 197110, Russia

⁴Kursk State Medical University, K. Marksa 3, Kursk, 305041, Russia

⁵Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dvortsovaya nab. 18, St. Petersburg, 191186, Russia

⁶St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University “LETI”, Professora Popova 5, St. Petersburg, 197022, Russia

⁷Penza State University, Krasnaya 40, Penza, 440026, Russia

Here, we present the earliest case of surgical treatment of mandibular permanent molars known in Northern Eurasia. It concerns an aged woman buried at a Mesolithic cemetery on the Yuzhny Oleniy Ostrov (Island) in Lake Onega, southern Karelia, 8250-8050 cal BP. Our objective was to reconstruct the technology of surgical intervention, and to diagnose and describe the underlying condition. To do this, we carried out an examination of teeth and bone tissues of the upper and lower jaws and a traceological analysis of identified lesions. As we found, in the last few months of her life, the woman underwent several dental operations, including the extraction of the lower left third molar and, in a stepwise fashion, of fragments of the distal part of crown and lingual part of the distal root of the lower right first molar. The first operation was successful—the woman survived for at least two months after it had been performed. The second operation was also successfully performed at least two months before death, likely immediately after the trauma. The mesial part of the crown was removed just before death. No ancient cases where fragments of an injured tooth were removed are known to us. The removal of the lower third molar can be compared only with the earliest previously known case, described in a sample from the Pucara de Tilcara fortress in Northern Argentina (15th-16th centuries AD). Indications for surgery partly coincide in both cases, and include complications of apical periodontitis and the development of osteomyelitis. However, the technology of surgery and its logistics are different.

Keywords: Mesolithic, tooth extraction, osteomyelitis, paleopathology, septic cavernous sinus thrombosis