Aesthetic tooth filing is a practice that has only been used by a few cultures in history. In Europe it only showed up in the late Viking era, almost entirely in and around Gottland. While many skulls have been found with the tooth alteration, written evidence is almost non-existent (there may be brief mentions in the sagas but I have not yet come across anything I thought could plausibly refer to it). Here is my paper from Kingdom Arts and Sciences 2024:

When I got feedback on my presentation I realized that I had not effectively explained why I didn’t demonstrate on human upper front teeth. The reasons are:

• The exact shape of the tooth effects the filing pattern so I needed to demonstrate on something approximately the shape of a human upper incisor
• Real human incisors are nearly impossible to source ethically, unlike human molars

I have since acquired plastic teeth in a full mouth model to practice on and I’m going to reach out to some local butchers to see what animal teeth I can procure that may be somewhat similar in shape to human.

My next step is to branch out to Central American tooth decorations which involved gluing semiprecious stones to teeth, and Filipino decorations in gold.