Why do we have wisdom teeth? To cause us pain, anguish and suffering! Or so it would seem...

No one knows for sure but wisdom teeth seem to be a throw back from our Stone Age ancestors whose diets required more chewing power and whose giant jawbones accomodated 32 teeth for the job! Not to mention dental care wasn't very high on the list back then- if a tooth fell out due to decay, the wisdom teeth closed the gap by pushing the other teeth forward.

Now here we are all evolved with a totally different diet and way better dental care (well, some of us) and yet those pesky wisdom teeth still seem to be hanging around. This is what is called a 'vestige'- a leftover organ (or structure) that has little or no use for us now, even though it was quite necessary early in the development of our species. So think of wisdom teeth as a token of our caveman days. Awww, isn't that nice?

Since the little buggers have nowhere to go, it means one usually ends up in the dentist's chair for a simple and very common wisdom tooth extraction.