Many people dread the visit to their dentist when they have their teeth drilled, but how long has this been going on? The most ancient evidence to date was recently described by Alfredo Coppa, Luca Bondioli, Andrea Cucian, David Frayer, Catherine Jarrige, Jean-François Jarrige, Guivron Quivron, Massimo Rossi, Massimo Vidale, and Roberto Macchiarelli and microscopy provided the convincing proof. The specimens were recovered from Mehrgarh, Pakistan, an area known to be occupied by farmers as long as 9,000 years ago. They identified four females, two males, and three individuals of undetermined gender who had a total of eleven drilled permanent teeth, all from adults. No drilled teeth from children were found. Four of the teeth were from the maxilla and seven from the mandible. All the drilling had been in the first or second molars. This led Coppa et al. to conclude that the drilling was not done for decorative purposes because on these teeth the holes, with or without decorative material inserted into them, would have been hardly visible.