How did humans evolve to require the aid of a toothbrush?

Question

How did humans evolve to require the aid of a toothbrush?

Answer 1

European's evolved whether from the biblical character's monkey's or some creation to commercialize sugar in the last two hundred years. Just because you eat the sugar and processed foods and brushed your teeth three times a day afterward, does not disclude the sugars you ate from going through your body and getting into the inside of your teeth through your tooth root canals.  All these Campbell soups, Lipton Ice Teas, Michelina's TV lunches, Tim Hoton's and Star Buck's stew of the day, and Jenny Craig's diet salad all have preservatives, sugars, and acids that go straight to your  tooth root canals by your blood stream. No amount of Crest toothpaste or fastest revolving Oral B toothbrush will stop this.

The fantasy fallacy of believing tooth paste and brushes stop decay is what evolved the latest European eras to believe they require these two things.

Otherwise farm pesticides do something similar too.

Ancestors of thousands of years ago used teas as antseptic mouthwash for bad breath, and cloths to wash their teeth.

They did not eat such nonsense food and so never felt tooth decay. And natural tooth decay in  those days was normal. So by 80-90 and 100 a few pin tip size cavities was normal and meaningless and they were due to chipping or natural decay. If a child gets a pin tip size chip or decay today, along with the foods they are sold and that they eat, the pin tip decay will develop into a rotted tooth within a year.

So, don't blame the foods you eat today, but be leary of why your government will continue to sell them, and try to make foods that won't do this to your teeth yourself.

Answer 2

having to use a toothbrush is a social/technological thing, not evolutionary. people in underdeveloped countries don't use toothbrushes, but they end up with rotting teeth.

there's nothing in out genetics that makes us brush our teeth. we just discovered that brushing helps you maintain your teeth, so we do it. (technological)

and if you don't brush your teeth, people look at you weird and move away because your breath stinks (social)

so the real question would be how did humans evolve intellect? or how do social norms evolve?

Answer 3

We got sick of each others morning breath.  

Plus to stop deforestation we decided not to use twigs (what our ancestors used to do).

Answer 4

people in africa tradtionally used ash and had perfect white teeth with little problems for 30,000 years.

It was only the introduction of  crappy food that caused problems and consequent inventions.

That's the beauty of the west create and cure.

Answer 5

If you had a diet exactly like non-toothbrush societies, you'd need a toothbrush less becuase of the content of your diet.  Less sugar = naturally fewer cavities.  This is why physical anthropologists look at skeletal teeth to judge a culture's diet.  That said, some tribal societies with very good diets still clean their teeth.  There is a tree in Africa that makes good brushes and the sap is a good breath freshener.  Other such methods might include the use of powder mixed with water that is applied to the teeth and rinsed off much like what the Western world had (mostly the upper class, of course) until fairly recently.

Answer 6

You can have a lot of kids before you die from a tooth abscess, so humans never evolved to "require" a toothbrush, or dentures, or dental hygienists.  

Most natural foods aren't near as high in sugar or acid as foods that are eaten and drunk today, so most would last long enough to have some kids and raise them till they were old enough to fend for themselves.

Answer 7

Certainly the amount of sugar that we eat today harms our teeth, but the original need for toothbrushes came when humans started processing grains, such as rice, corn and wheat.