Neanderthals had the know-how to identify a tooth infection and the motor skills to drill out the damage, according to a study published May 13, 2026, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Alisa Zubova of Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences (Kunstkamera), St. Petersburg, and colleagues.
It probably hurt so bad already that this felt like a last resort. People used to say bugs or gremlins or w/e caused tooth pain so Neander Von Thal might have been begging to have it popped