Neanderthals drilled cavities to treat a toothache 59,000 years ago

Two of the teeth were museum specimens, whose age and context curators didn’t know, making them less useful for other kinds of research. But one, an upper left third molar with an untreated cavity, came straight from the mouth of one of the authors—for science! (In most scientific papers, a section at the end outlines the specific contributions of each author, which usually means tasks like writing, data collection, production of stone tools, and analysis. …