At the 9,000-year-old archaeological site of Catalhoyuk, (roughly pronounced Cha-TAL-hook), researchers have unearthed human teeth drilled through the root, which must have been part of a necklace or other kind of jewelry.
     With up to 8,000 inhabitants, the site was composed of distinctive dwellings arranged back-to-back without doors or windows, entered through the roof by means of ladders. Believed to be one of the very first egalitarian societies, it lacks monumental constructions such as common burial grounds, temples, and grand communal buildings.
     It is thought that only 4 percent of the site has been excavated. Artefacts found have been mainly tools. The three ornamental teeth are recent finds.
     Two of the teeth - a permanent premolar and a permanent molar - were found inside one of the dwellings. Another permanent premolar was found in a grave. All came from adults and showed no signs of disease. They date to sometime between 6300 and 6700 BCE.
     The teeth were examined for wear and analysed to determine how the holes were drilled. The holes in two teeth show clear signs of drilling, with hourglass-shaped holes evidently worked from both sides. Wear on the inside of the hole suggests that the teeth were threaded and worn as ornamentation.
     The use of human teeth for ornamental purposes is archaeologically documented from the European Upper Palaeolithic, and sporadically during the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. No previous examples were available for the Near East during this timeframe.
     Catalhoyuk was occupied between 7100 and 5500 BCE. Several domestic buildings have been found in on the site along with ornamental objects depicting animals or derived from animal teeth or bones.

Edited from Science Direct (November 2019), News 18 (18 November 2019), ZME Science (19 November 2019)