(Mind typos) Anthropologists consensus is that wisdom teeth are remnants from our biological evolution when we needed those extra teeth to help grind tough food (plants, nuts, etcetera), but as our brains expanded it created narrower jaws, combined with the advancement of processing foods, the need for those grinding third molars was less necessary. There are other theories that posit continued wisdom teeth development is more developmental from childhood eating habits, i.e. Eating more processed foods doesn’t stimulate as much jaw growth.

Wisdom teeth impaction is when they cannot grow naturally into our narrow jaws, being trapped under bone or gum. Everybody’s form of impaction could be different some people very mild and not even noticeable. Its estimated that about 22% of the world population does not develop one or more wisdom teeth and only 24% have meaningful impaction.

Before advancements in anesthetics like Novacaine became widely available (late 19th and early 20th century)most medical professionals preferred not to perform surgery to extract wisdom teeth but to treat symptoms. It would be considered an intimidating and grueling procedure. People with impaction would have to simply deal with the symptoms and pain and in some cases even suffer infection and fatalities from infection.

Wisdom teeth extractions have occurred throughout history using various forms of rudimentary hand tools but would’ve been done without anesthetic, antibiotics post surgery, and most likely only available to folks who could find qualified practitioners.

Dental scientists do encourage eating crunchy or more raw food in childhood as they found evidence to support that it could increase jaw growth and decrease the need for routine wisdom tooth extraction.

The bottom line is whether it was ancient history or modern history wisdom teeth development and subsequent impactment could vary wildly from region to region. Those that had nasty cases would suffer, die, or if you could afford to, have an extremely painful surgery without the benefit of antibiotics leading to possible infection.

The past was rough!