A demolition team may just have unearthed the home of the tooth fairy, in Invercargill.
Some human teeth, 1000 of which, were found just below the surface at the site where a hotel complex is to be developed.
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The Invercargill Licensing Trust's (ILT) hotel is being built on the site in the central business district of the city, and the discovery was made by demolition workers working there in May.
ILT chief executive Chris Ramsay told Newshub the find gave everyone a giggle.
"It was like digging for gold at one stage," he said. "It just looked like a bunch of seashells, and we said 'hang on'.
"So that got the archaeologists a bit fizzed up, and gave them something to sink their teeth into."
The pearlers have been traced back to a dentist that resided there in the 1950s.
Heritage New Zealand senior archaeologist Dr Matthew Schmidt told Stuff it was strange discovery.
"I have never come across it before, a big bunch of teeth.
"I would have thought if you were a dentist in the 1950s and '60s you would have put [teeth] in your rubbish bin."
Newshub.
