Indonesian foragers may have sucked on mind-altering nuts 25,000 years ago, research finds — SkimNews
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- Researchers analyzed two pre-agricultural skeletons from Sulawesi, Indonesia (one ~7,000 years old, another 16,000–25,000 years old), finding deep, rounded grooves in the teeth worn by repeated nut-sucking — some so severe they exposed the dental pulp.
- Arecoline, the psychoactive compound in betel nuts, was detected in the dental tissue of both foragers, confirming the habit produced a mild high even without the later addition of slaked lime.
- Betel nuts rank as the world's fourth most widely used psychoactive substance — after alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine — with roughly a tenth of the global population chewing them today, per the study.
- The paper, published in Science Advances by Prof Adam Brumm of Griffith University's Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, predates the previously oldest known psychoactive tradition — fermented barley drinks ~13,000 years ago.
- Dr Elisa Guerra-Doce of the University of Valladolid called the study the "earliest known evidence to date of the use of psychoactive plants anywhere in the world," with Areca nut consumption dating back to prehistoric times.
- Brumm hypothesized a self-perpetuating cycle: foragers may have sucked nuts to relieve toothache, but the habit wore down their teeth badly enough to create worse dental pain over time.
Why it matters: By pushing documented human drug use back roughly 12,000 years — and back into a pre-agricultural foraging context — the finding reshapes the archaeological timeline of psychoactive plant consumption, suggesting the human drive to seek mind-altering substances long predates the rise of fermented beverages and settled societies. Researchers studying human-plant coevolution now have direct chemical and dental evidence to work with, not just inference.
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