SYDNEY, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Archaeologists have dug up over 1,000 human teeth in Melbourne's Central Business District which is one of the strangest discoveries in modern Australian history.
Over 1,000 human teeth were found during a major archaeological excavation in the heart of the city, as part of an 11 billion Australian dollars (8.1 billion U.S dollars) railway project.
"This site is incredibly significant, not just because of the scale of the project that we are working on but also because of the archeology that we are going to find here," director of excavation at the Melbourne Town Hall Station site, Megan Goulding told local media on Tuesday.
Although it is not yet clear how the teeth came to be buried at the site, scientists and historians have been chomping at the bit to find out.
The most plausible theory is that the teeth were likely removed by a dentist on Swanston Street at the turn of the 20th century.
Historical documents reveal the presence of a man named J.J. Forester who opened a dentistry in 1898.
"We got a huge number of heavily decayed teeth which would have been very painful prior to their removal," artefact manager at the Town Hall Station site Jennifer Porter explained.
"We also had extracted teeth with parts of bone still attached, gold fillings and... various forms of dentures."
"A lot of them were found in a metal pipe so we think many of them were flushed or washed down the drain."
While this appears to solve the case of the century-old teeth, the mystery will continue to bite for many amateure sleuths in Melbourne.
Across other locations, more than half a million artefacts have also been found during the excavation work.
Some of these items include a child's sling shot, gaming dice dating back to the 1700's and earrings from the 1800's.
Archaeologists predict they will find more than 1 million artefacts before metro link is completed, with the items collected set for public display in September.
