Insights into demographic and cultural influences on the oral microbiome from historical Japanese dental calculus
Yuki Kuriyama, Fuzuki Mizuno, Takashi Yamada, Masahiko Kumagai, Masaki Tanaka, Izumi Naka, Kazuaki Hirata, Soichiro Mizushima, Shiori Yonemoto, Kyoko Funahashi, Noriko Seguchi, Kazuhiro Sakaue, Eisaku Kanazawa, Masami Matsushita, Takayuki Matsushita, Aiko Saso, Takashi Nara, Ryohei Sawaura, Chiaki K · 2026
Read Insights into demographic and cultural influences on the oral microbiome from historical Japanese dental calculus by Yuki Kuriyama, Fuzuki Mizuno, Takashi Yamada, Masahiko Kumagai, Masaki Tanaka, Izumi Naka, Kazuaki Hirata, Soichiro Mizushima, Shiori Yonemoto, Kyoko Funahashi, Noriko Seguchi, Kazuhiro Sakaue, Eisaku Kanazawa, Masami Matsushita, Takayuki Matsushita, Aiko Saso, Takashi Nara, Ryohei Sawaura, Chiaki K (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13247168.txt.
Description
Kuriyama and co-authors read ancient mouths through dental calculus, the hardened plaque on teeth, in this 2026 Scientific Reports study. Most ancient microbiome work uses European or North American remains, leaving Japan unexplored. The team sequenced microbes in calculus mainly from Edo period individuals, spanning the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, plus far older Jomon material, and compared them with modern Japanese samples.
Ancient and modern mouths differed clearly, and the Jomon and Edo communities diverged from each other, with regional variation inside the Edo period too. One striking clue: women whose teeth bore traces of ohaguro, the tooth-blackening custom, all carried the same branch of a gum-disease-associated microbe. The authors argue culture and demography leave fingerprints on the microbes we carry.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Yuki Kuriyama, Fuzuki Mizuno, Takashi Yamada, Masahiko Kumagai, Masaki Tanaka, Izumi Naka, Kazuaki Hirata, Soichiro Mizushima, Shiori Yonemoto, Kyoko Funahashi, Noriko Seguchi, Kazuhiro Sakaue, Eisaku Kanazawa, Masami Matsushita, Takayuki Matsushita, Aiko Saso, Takashi Nara, Ryohei Sawaura, Chiaki K |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 50 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |