Analyzing two teeth excavated from the Pleistocene layers of the Stajnia Cave (Kraków-Częstochowa Upland), the team led by Dr. Wioletta Nowaczewska from the Department of Human Biology, University of Wrocław, found traces left by a toothpick.

She said: “It appears that the owner of the tooth used oral hygiene. Probably between the last two teeth, there were food residues that had to be removed. We don’t know what he made a toothpick from – a piece of a twig, a piece of bone, or a fishbone. It had to be a fairly stiff, cylindrical object, which the individual used often enough to leave a clear trace.”