Interesting!

Every year millions of people get braces or have their wisdom teeth pulled. That’s because there isn’t enough dental real estate in the average human mouth. Although a boon for the dental profession, humanity’s mass malocclusion (or misalignment of teeth) wasn’t always this way.

In our distant past, before we put down the hunting bow for the dirt-churning plow, human jaws comfortably accommodated all the teeth in our mouth.

Yes, even our wisdom teeth. 

A study in 2015 analyzed the lower jaws of 292 skeletons ranging from 28,000 to 6,000 years old — an age range that straddles our adoption of agriculture some 12,000 years ago. Scientists noticed that early farmers had smaller jaws than their hunter-gatherer forebears. This is likely because before agriculture, Homo sapiens chomped hard-shelled nuts, uncooked vegetables, and tough meats, which required larger, stronger jaws. With the advent of farming, diets consisted of softer foods like beans and cereals, causing the size of the human jaw to decline over time because it’s not subject to the same amount of chewing time. Although our jaws are smaller, our number of teeth has remained the same, leading to the dental traffic jam experienced by millions today.

We found this on Interesting Facts and have to believe that there is truth in it. Very interesting!

Have a great weekend and keep exercising those jaws!