Watched a program on TV last night that featured Richard III's skull. Google an image.
No noticeable overbite on the teeth! Not the least uncommon in that era.
Apparently the overbite that we almost all have these days is due to the fact that we cut-up our food, especially meat, before we eat it. Try it yourself - do your upper teeth overlap your lower?
Theory is that this is quite a recent adaptation in modern man due to the introduction of cutlery, and even chopsticks. The old skulls of Chinese peasantry differ to those of the upper classes because the peasants used to eat with their hands, as did most of the lower classes in Europe in days gone by. The principal of the knife was to cut off a slab of whatever and then tear it to bite-sized lumps with your teeth - the reason your teeth used to meet top to bottom. All the better to tear a piece off, you see.
Prior to the generalised use of table cutlery, diners used to cut off slabs of meat and then eat with their hands, tearing the meat (or whatever) and that is the reason that medieval skulls differ from the modern (as far as choppers go).
While I realise that this is a sensitive subject for our own indigenous (who won't even speak of their dead), I am interested, though not yet involved, in a study of this nature. Though I'm not sure about a Google search on such images and what results it would return.
What an extraordinary thing if it were true! A physiological adaptation that occurs within half a millennium because of a technological advance we now take for granted.
We may have cooked our meat for millennia - but it's the knives and forks that have almost civilised us. It's imprinted in our skeletons.
If we survive
another 500 years as a species, it might be interesting to see what Homo Sapiens looks like.
Forum
Pages: 1 
