Evidence of Modern Dentistry In Ohio Hopewell Mound Builders Teeth
History of Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, 1905
It is evident from the remains of an ancient mound found in Lewistown, and traces of a piece of stone wall in Kishacoquillas Valley, that Mifflin county, as well as other portions of our country, east, and west, were inhabited by a people of an advanced state of civilization, previous to the coming of the Indian. All over the country, they have left evidence of their manufactures and advanced progress in the finer arts. As stated in the sketch of Lewistown, they have left traces from the valley of the Hudson to Alaska and Central America.
From disinternments made in various part of Ohio, their mounds and traces of breastworks and old forts are in various parts of the State; there are found bones and skulls of these prehistoric people in large amounts. The skulls are in a better state of preservation than the common bones from their harder, finer texture; and the teeth were perfectly preserved, and in them were found pieces of evidence of the practice of dentistry as is the custom at the present day. Teeth were taken from skulls in Ohio, that contained plugs of a whitish metal, well preserved, and inserted with as much skill as is done at the present time.
