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Researchers have identified the oldest archaeological evidence of habitual drug use — teeth up to 25,000 years old from Indonesian hunter-gatherers that show wear patterns from repeatedly sucking whole betel nuts to release the stimulant arecoline.

What is a key fact in this story? (1)

**Adam Brumm** of Griffith University discovered a jaw fragment with three teeth at a Maros-Pangkep cave on Sulawesi, dating to 16,000–25,000 years ago, with grooves indicating habitual sucking of whole betel nuts — pushing back the earliest known habitual drug use.

What is a key fact in this story? (2)

**A second skull** from another Sulawesi cave site (6,000–8,000 years old), belonging to a middle-aged or older man, showed identical grooves; the teeth were worn down so severely that nerve centres were exposed, causing significant pain.

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Earliest evidence of habitual drug use found in teeth in Indonesia — SkimNews

By New Scientist · Summarized & edited by Kapil Samant · 2026-09-09

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Adam Brumm of Griffith University discovered a jaw fragment with three teeth at a Maros-Pangkep cave on Sulawesi, dating to 16,000–25,000 years ago, with grooves indicating habitual sucking of whole betel nuts — pushing back the earliest known habitual drug use.
A second skull from another Sulawesi cave site (6,000–8,000 years old), belonging to a middle-aged or older man, showed identical grooves; the teeth were worn down so severely that nerve centres were exposed, causing significant pain.
Laboratory tests by the team confirmed that soaking whole betel nuts in artificial saliva released enough arecoline — a stimulatory, pain-relieving compound — to activate human brain receptors, and traces of arecoline were detected directly on the ancient teeth.
The finding predates the previous oldest known habitual drug use evidence: 13,000-year-old beer brewing in Israel and 8,000-year-old coca leaf chewing in Peru, though Brumm notes addiction to plant substances likely began even earlier.
Brumm's self-experiment — rolling a whole betel nut in his own mouth — produced a bitter, astringent, numbing taste, suggesting prehistoric users may have started for tooth-pain relief before becoming addicted to the stimulant effect.
Betel nuts today rank as the world's fourth most popular psychoactive substance after alcohol, caffeine and nicotine; modern chewing with slaked lime produces euphoria and alertness but stains teeth red and is linked to elevated oral cancer and heart disease risk.

Why it matters: The 25,000-year timeline reshapes what we know about the deep evolutionary roots of human psychoactive substance use, showing hunter-gatherers engaged in habitual drug-seeking behavior long before agriculture or settled civilization. With betel nut chewing still affecting hundreds of millions of people across Asia today, the discovery also provides a biological baseline for understanding a practice that remains a major public health concern — linked to oral cancer and heart disease — stretching back to the Pleistocene.