Ancient "dental implants": a recently proposed example from France evaluated with other spurious examples.

The recent announcement of the discovery of a first or second century AD Roman example of a dental implant appears to fall into a category of spurious claims regarding ancient dentistry. Several earlier claims of the discovery of impressive examples of ancient dentistry are reviewed, followed by a discussion of the recent discovery from France. This survey of all of these claims regarding finds of ancient dental implants, plus data from the modern and rapidly evolving field of implant dentistry, suggests that these "ancient implants" are the product of the imaginations of 20th-century archaeologists.