Caries in the Latest Pleistocene

I was very excited to see the media buzz surrounding Humphrey et al.'s new paper entitled "Earliest evidence for caries and exploitation of starchy plant foods in Pleistocene hunter-gatherers from Morocco" in PNAS. This is a sample with a unprecedentedly high caries prevalence for pre-agricultural groups, 51.2% of adult teeth. I look forward to comparing these results with those generated from my dissertation research on caries, periodontal disease and tooth loss in Late Pleistocene humans in Western Eurasia. Caries were significantly higher around the Northern Mediterranean than the rest of Europe (results to be presented at the Paleopathology Association Meetings in Calgary, April 2014), but Northern Africa materials were unavailable to me at the time. Is it a latitudinal effect on available food stuffs or proximity to the Mediterranean? Humphrey and co-authors did not have any recent surveys of oral health in the Late Pleistocene within which to contextualize their results, so I guess I better get my work published. I wonder if I can get this much media attention!

Original publication: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/01/03/1318176111.full.pdf+html?sid=75088d65-097e-4aa2-b692-25031c64739a
Popular summaries: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24332237
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/06/260185944/looks-like-the-paleo-diet-wasnt-so-hot-for-ancient-hunters-teeth