Construction workers have unearthed a haul of roughly 1,000 human teeth, buried deep in a second floor wall, as they were prepping commercial premises at the T.B. Converse Building, in Valdosta, the US state of Georgia, The Valdosta Daily Times reported.
(via a historic preservation FB group I belong to)
— 🎃Demolition by Neglect 🍫 (@LDTG117) 25 октября 2018 г.
"Hundreds of teeth found in Downtown Valdosta wall"https://t.co/gFiIaIC8Y0 pic.twitter.com/jQsTt88fyG
"No, you build with MORTAR, not molars." https://t.co/axPJIZTP0R
— Tony Pizza (@trivialtony) 27 октября 2018 г.
It is not immediately clear why the teeth, sported in now viral social media pictures, were hidden inside the wall, but back in 1900, a dentist named Dr. Clarence Whittington reportedly lived there. Another tenant linked to the historic building is his colleague, Dr. Lester G. Youmans, who stayed there from 1911 until at least 1930.
Ellen Hill, Valdosta’s Main Street director, said their agency had learned about the teeth on social media and started researching the building’s history.
“From what we could tell, that building was the original location of Vinson and Barnes Drug Store, which then turned into Barnes Drugs…. They were on the first floor of that building,” she said.
The discovery was also immediately linked to one of the local museum exhibits, namely a receipt for a tooth extraction, which a patient received from Youmans, and which was recently found at an antique store.
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This is not the first instance of its kind. Greensboro and Carrolton, two other Georgia cities, are both home to ancient buildings where teeth have been found inside the walls, Hill said. She stressed that those buildings were former dental offices as well.
Meanwhile, Valdosta police said nothing had been reported to them, adding they “haven’t located any evidence of a crime” to date.
