how did wisdom teeth orginate from early homo erectus?
464056
ok.. so in the past, our smart ancestors needed all those teeth. as one of my colleagues has said, they needed to chew hard food and be crunching on those bones, meat and so on. but that's not it although they had large jaws (which in due time and evolution shrinked) they also didn't have toothpaste!!! so, their teeth would decay in time, and they would do anythg to get rid of those ones that pained them much (like bang it to a tree so that it falls, and or chew on a large apple so that tooth is stuck on it, w/o going to doctor to fix a small decay. so they would end up losing most of their teeth at the age of 18. but that was ok for they would have extra fantastic 4 to the rescue.\n\nnow, since we have toothpaste, and dentists and loads of other stuff to protect our teeth, our jaws shrunk and we were in all ways cooking food and not crunching on big nuts like desperate fools, rather use special tools to break nuts & so on. so, we proected our teeth, and eventually we don't need those extra four... which are a surplus extra by all means, and they would hurt our mouth when they come out... so BYE BYE ADDITIONAL MOLARS! OUCH!
1019135
Human bones have been found in some caves in Europe that date back to the Ice Age that show signs of human teeth gnawing on them.
41130
homo erectus ("upright man") got its name because scientists thought it was the first to walk erect.  The current fossil record indicates the first primate to walk erect was australopithicus africanus.
294512
There is a tailbone in humans which is redundant, just like an appendix. Appendix has use for animals in digesting raw food. People stopped eating raw food, making it redundant. \nIf you check the ancient drawings, ancient humans had a lot of body hair, but as humans evovled, the hair became less.\n\nTo the person above - Neanderthal, Cro-magnan, Homo-erectus fossils are what you can call a "Transitional" fossil to prove evolution.\n\nTo the person who asked the question - Mutation, adaptation and evolution are inter-linked. Monkeys did not evolve into humans overnight. Or it wasnt a case that monkeys gave birth to humans suddenly. Adaptations and mutation over generations results into evolution. In fact you can say that Mutation and adaptations are preliminary steps of evolution.\n\nTo hutsong - Evolution is how life evolved from primitive life form into the current species. It, in no way speaks how life was created in the first way.\nAlso you talk about experiments in labs have proved that one life-form can not evolve into a different life-form. Heres a  question for you - How many years are these laboratories set up for? If the answer is less than 500 years, then its not enough time frame for any evolution to be seen.\nAlso you are giving links to a website which can is run by christains who are staunch opponnents of evolution not scientifically but religiously. So that has no weight at all. Maybe links to magazines like Science or Nature would have been more convincing.\n\nThumbs up to emilyrose!!
293723
if he really is a scientist.. then he made fun of you. Homo erectus is an ancestor of modern man Homo sapiens. He called you an ape!!!
1162611
First of all TEETH ARE NOT BONES.\n\n\nTeeth are depositions of enamel and dentin formed inside a tiny bud that grows(it's called a  tooth bud).  Each bud is formed like a sprout off a chain of sprouts, like leaves on a plant.  You are NOT born with all your teeth already started, but with most of them already started.   Your wisdom teeth are the last to start forming well after birth (I think 6 or 7 years) . \n\nAs part of the eruption process the new tooth (adult tooth) start to eat away the roots of the baby tooth in a controlled manner. as it takes away more and more of the baby tooth root,  the baby tooth becomes looser and falls out.   So what pushes the tooth out? The ligaments that attach the root to the bone provide the eruption force necessary for the tooth to move.
299858
it is thought that the apple exercises the gums. Improves bllod hence stops gum disease. the teeth are attached to ligament like structures within the gum and these are able to move up and down. Our modern day diet stops this process from happening because it's too soft. As cavemen we would have been eating raw meat and veg. They didn't have tooth brushes then and yet the skulls are often found with teeth intact thousands of years later.
715846
Some people are just born without them... my mother was born with wisdom teeth on the top, but not on the bottom.  A friend of mine was born with none at all.  You must just be a biological anomaly.  Congratulations.
263415
The Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) or Neandertal was a species of the Homo genus that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia from about 230,000 to 29,000 years ago, during the Middle Paleolithic period.\n\nNeanderthals were adapted to the cold, as shown by their large braincases, short but robust builds, and large noses — traits selected by nature in cold climates, as observed in modern sub-arctic populations. Their brain sizes have been estimated as larger than "modern" humans, but their brains may in fact have been approximately the same as those of modern humans. On average, Neanderthal males stood about 1.65m tall (just under 5' 6") and were heavily built, and muscular due to their physical activity. Females were about 1.53 to 1.57m tall (about 5'-5'2").\n\nThe characteristic style of stone tools in the Middle Paleolithic is called the Mousterian Culture, after a prominent archaeological site where the tools were first found. The Mousterian culture is typified by the wide use of the Levallois technique. Mousterian tools were often produced using soft hammer percussion, such as bones, antlers, and wood, rather than hard hammer percussion, using stone. Near the end of the time of the Neanderthals, they created the Chatelperronian tool style, considered more "advanced" than that of the Mousterian. They either invented the Chatelperronian themselves or "borrowed" elements from the incoming modern humans who are thought to have created the Aurignacian
879448
he happens to be wrong. Scientists and archeaologists have traced the origin of the homo spp. to the area of africa known as the great rift. Modern humans first apeared in one of three places: North Africa, Central Asia/Middle East, or Eastern Europe.
770395
wisdom teeth are nothing but the 3rd molars , and is the last tooth to be errupted in the mouth , it erupts between the age of 17 - 21 years , not every person needs to to be pulled out , it depends whether the wisdom tooth has got suffiecient space for errupting in the space provided by your jaw , when ever there is insufficient space the wisdom tooth gets impacted and gives u pain and some times sweeling and infection of gums around the partly errupted wisdom tooth which is called pericorinitis . so the persons in which wisdom has got impacted, should get their tooth to be extracted .\n\n it doesn't fall out or exfoliate itself as its not a milk tooth , its a permanent tooth which errupts at age of 17 - 21
200642
It seems that anthropologists have bones of austropethicus and ape-like people like the bones of an ape person called "Lucy" The skull cavity was for a large brain but the bone structures were more ape like than human like. There was neanderthal man which was believed to have been exterminated by homo erectus. Also homo habilis. I'm really not sure if people wiped out some smart ape people or if those bones are supposed to be us. But I personally believe humans are not apes. If anything I believe people are more closely related to bears than apes, though genetically speaking I'd be laughed at for that assertion.
410596
Temporal Fenestrae\n\nThese holes have to do w/ attachment of temporal muscles in the head. The ones responsible for pulling the jaw shut. I believe it also has something to do w/ jaw strength but I am not completely sure on that part.\n\nAnapsids didn't have the t.f. Turtles are the only living anapsids.\n\nSynapsids have one tf at the back of the head. This covers all the mammal-like reptiles. Precursors to mammals.\n\nEuryapsids also had one tf located high on the skull. Marine reptiles/plesiosaurs/etc.\n\nDiapsids had two tf. This category covers lizards, snakes, crocodiles, dinosaurs, birds, etc.\n\nWhile there was a function for these "holes" paleontologists use them more or less to help classify reptiles into categories.
232925
Wisdom teeth used to serve a useful purpose, but are now considered vestigial organs. A vestige is a degenerative or imperfectly formed organ or structure having little or no utility, but in the earlier stage of development of a species performed a useful function. The reasons that wisdom teeth are now "outdated" are many. Until quite recently, our diet included mostly very coarse food, as well as impurities such as dirt and sand. This coarseness would abrade teeth so significantly that they would take up less space in the jaw. Permanent teeth were also frequently lost at an early age, which would create more space in the jaw. Because the diet was so coarse and hard to chew, the jaw itself would develop into a larger bone because of this constant workout. All of these factors would create more space for the wisdom teeth when they came in.\n\nThe heavily processed diet of today does not produce the tooth abrasion or jaw development that we used to see. Modern dentistry has pretty much eliminated significant loss of permanent teeth at an early age. This leaves us with too many teeth and not enough jaw. The wisdom teeth still develop as they always have, but they have no where to go.
441977
Actually, they have found half and half fossils.  Read this:\n\nFish with legs and lungs\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/science/05cnd-fossil.html?ex=1301889600&en=43e5c9ecb1dd0cd6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss\n\nFossil that links modern man with Homo erectus\nhttp://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/03/25/missing.link.ap/index.html\n\nBy the way, to the people that say it's still a "theory".  In the scientific community, a theroy is something that has been backed up by countless experiments, records, discoveries, etc.  It DOES NOT MEAN something that is yet to be proven, that is a called an hypothesis.
1009537
I think they call them wisdom teeth because they come out when you are older which insinuates that you are or suposed to be wiser. \n\nThat makes sense to me....what do you think?
109668
He probably has a DDS (doctor of dental surgery, usually regular dentists send you to a specialist these days for extractions) and Jason had his wisdom tooth or teeth removed (which probably were growing in sideways or impacted).