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A Second Drilled Tooth from Prehistoric Western North America

The burial of a young adult woman with a drilled molar tooth was excavated in 1965 in northern Arizona (Museum of Northern Arizona NA9099.B5; Pueblo IV, A.D. 1300–1600). The drilling angle and location suggest that the therapeutic or palliative procedure was done while the woman was alive, and probably in pain because the drilled hole occurred at the bottom of a large necrotic cavity involving about one quarter of the occlusal surface. The drilled hole exited at the crown-root junction near a small alveolar buccal abscess. With painful and unhealthy dental caries on the rise as dependency on agriculture increased through time, it is suggested that this case and one other mark the beginning practice of primitive technical dentistry in prehistoric western North America.