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An iron tooth implant fitted 2,300 years ago could be earliest false tooth ever found in Western Europe.

The dental implant was discovered in the timber burial chamber of an Iron Age woman who died in her twenties in Le Chene, northern France.

Archaeologists believe the false tooth was added to improve the appearance of the corpse as the procedure would have been too painful to endure while alive.

An iron tooth implant fitted 2,300 years ago could be earliest false tooth ever found in Western Europe. The dental implant (shown here second from the right) was discovered in the timber burial chamber of an Iron Age woman who died in her twenties in Le Chene, northern France

The implant came in the form of an iron pin found in place of an upper incisor tooth, from which a false tooth would have been attached.

'The skeleton was very badly preserved,' Guillaume Seguin, who excavated the young woman's skeleton in 2009, told the BBC.

'But the teeth were in an anatomical position, with the molars, pre-molars, canines and incisors. Then there was this piece of metal. My first reaction was: what is this?'

The woman was buried in a well-furnished chamber, dating to the third century BC, near the graves of three other women.

The implant came in the form of an iron pin found in place of an incisor tooth, from which a false tooth would have been attached. This photo shows the teeth in position during excavation. The iron pin is visible on the left

The burials contained bronze jewellery, belt ornaments, coral and amber necklace and an iron currency bar showing features of the Celtic La Tene culture.

Celtic La Tene culture, which flourished across Central and Western Europe at the time, was famous for advanced forms of metalwork, including creating jewellery and other decorative works.

Scientists believe the iron spike was pounded into the pulp canal of nerves and blood vessels to make sure it stayed in place.

The procedure would have been excruciating had the lady been alive when it was performed.

Iron corrodes inside the body, and one theory is that the lack of sterile conditions may have led to an infection that ended the young lady's life.

The grave was one of four female burials in an enclosure dating to the third century BC that were discovered dt in the Champagne-Ardenne region of Le Chene, northern France

Another possible scenario is that the dental implant was fitted after her death for aesthetic reasons.

In the journal Antiquity, Mr Seguin, along with co-authors from the University of Bordeaux, wrote that the burials 'convey the image of a social elite concerned about their appearance'.

They also note that the date of the burials coincides with a period when the Celtic Gauls were in contact with the Etruscan civilisation of northern Italy, who were known for their dental mastery.

The implant is 400 years older than one from another grave in France, found in the 1990s at Essonne.

The young man in this grave lost all his top left molars and archaeologists believe the iron implant was probably added to help him chew.

Five thousand-year-old prosthetic teeth used to improve the appearance of the dead have also been found in Egypt and the Near East.