Hundreds of teeth were uncovered by construction workers in 2019, when they dug up the Leviathan Gift Depot site, in Dee St — home to Victorian dental practices from 1881 to 1905.
University of Otago researchers have analysed the first molars of three males and a female to determine the sex, diet, social class and place of residence of the people they were extracted from.
Co-author and University of Otago anatomy researcher Dr Sian Halcrow said the research was the first to study the people themselves from a colonial New Zealand city centre.
"We found that these dental patients were second or third-generation colonists to Aotearoa, with fairly similar childhood diets, who were potentially lower-class individuals, and either living in, or passing through, the growing colonial centre of Invercargill," she said.
While they ate a typical European diet, likely consisting of meat, milk, root vegetables, wheat, barley and oats, only one displayed evidence of being weaned from breast milk.
"The work was also unique, as most bio-archaeological studies rely on the remains of the dead, but these teeth were extracted from living people."
Just how so many teeth ended up on the site was an example of how lessons from the past informed present-day issues.
"The Dee St teeth were extracted from people who went to practitioner dentists — those who were more ‘mechanical’, with a focus on extracting teeth and fitting dentures.
"These practitioner dentists were cheaper than their professional counterparts who charged more for restorative and preventive care."
Dr Halcrow said those who visited these dentists might have been from the lower classes, showing how some social groups had less access to preventive dental care.
It highlighted a dichotomy which still existed today, she said.
