Sir, I wonder if other colleagues were wary of the statement by 'scientists' that coarse food would have required more chewing and higher bite forces, which could have stimulated growth of the jaw bone and therefore created more room for the wisdom teeth to erupt (the Magdalenian girl BDJ 2006; 200: 311).

Is there any evidence that mandibles increase in length due to chewing coarse food? Arthur Koestler once wrote he could recognise Americans as there was something square about their jaws due to constantly chewing gum but I don't think this interesting observation has ever been proven.

I can accept that a coarse diet may flatten the contact areas and therefore allow a bit more space for lower wisdom tooth eruption, but I suspect that the lack of specimens of ancient homo sapiens with wisdom tooth impaction is more likely to be due to genetics rather than environment. Perhaps we simply haven't collected enough material.

In any event the radiograph clearly shows a lack of root development of the wisdom tooth and the presence of bone distal to the second molar. It doesn't look impacted to me, just unerupted. I'd go for the younger age.