Teeth have the great archaeological advantage of being constructed from remarkably tough materials, which can survive a century and more in the harsh environment of the mouth. They also survive in a very wide range of archaeological sites and conditions of burial. Teeth of large animals are part of the carcass which is thrown away early in the butchery process, and so become incorporated quickly into rubbish deposits. They are readily recognised during excavation and routinely recovered in a similar way to artefacts. Often, they are amongst the most numerous finds. At large town sites in Britain, for instance, the number of identifiable bone and tooth fragments frequently exceeds the total of recognisable sherds of pottery.

The importance of recovering such material from excavations has long been recognised. In his Primeval Antiquities of Denmark (1849), J. J. A. Worsaae asserted firmly that all objects from archaeological sites, including animal bones, should be preserved. As archaeology developed, finds of the remains of extinct mammals alongside human bones and artefacts came to provide crucial evidence for the antiquity of man. William Pengelly's famous excavations of Brixham Cave in 1858–9 revealed a deposit containing flint tools and extinct animal bones that was sealed by a thick layer of stalagmite, also containing remains of extinct animals (Daniel, 1978).

Most teeth from mammals larger than a cat can be recognised when trowelling on an archaeological site, or quickly recovered by sieving/screening at a coarse mesh (1 cm).