Scientists Discover the Earliest Evidence of Drug Use in 25,000-Year-Old Teeth

Image by Fakhri

“Sci­en­tists Dis­cov­er the Ear­li­est Evi­dence of Drug Use in Real­ly Old Teeth” may sound like odd head­line lan­guage, at least by the tra­di­tion­al stan­dards of the New York Times. But then, the teeth in ques­tion are, indeed, real­ly old. “Archae­ol­o­gists have pushed the time­line of human drug use back fur­ther than ever before by study­ing teeth that belonged to a hunter-gath­er­er who lived in Indone­sia some­time from 16,000 to 25,000 years ago,” writes reporter Becky Fer­reira. This beats the 13,000-year-old beer from Israel that pre­vi­ous­ly held the title of old­est known mind-alter­ing comestible. “The individual’s molars, which were found in a cave on the island of Sulawe­si, are marked with deep grooves that were most like­ly left by inces­sant suck­ing on betel nuts, which release psy­choac­tive stim­u­lants.”

All these mil­len­nia lat­er, betel nut-chew­ing remains a major rit­u­al and pas­time. Though it seems nev­er to have caught on in the Eng­lish-speak­ing world, it has a great many adher­ents in not just mod­ern-day Indone­sia but also oth­er parts of south­east and south Asia, includ­ing India, as well as in Chi­na.

Mixed into a com­pound with the leaves of its own plant, slaked lime, and a vari­ety of oth­er ingre­di­ents from coconut to men­thol to cloves to tobac­co — the region­al vari­a­tions are count­less — betel nuts can be chewed all day long, and often are. Whether you call it paan, buai, doma, ngangà, or some­thing else entire­ly, the stuff is “reput­ed to be the world’s fourth most pop­u­lar psy­choac­tive sub­stance after alco­hol, caf­feine, and nico­tine,” write the authors of a study on the Sulawe­si teeth new­ly pub­lished in Sci­ence Advances.

Before you seek out the near­est are­ca palm to expe­ri­ence what all the fuss is about for your­self, know that the doc­u­ment­ed health effects of betel nut-chew­ing include can­cer, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, liv­er dam­age, dia­betes, and infer­til­i­ty; even still-fer­tile chew­ers run the risk of caus­ing birth defects. At the very least, those who pick up the habit also acquire a char­ac­ter­is­tic red tooth stain, which has been seen on near­ly 5,000-year-old skele­tons unearthed in south­east Asia. In the case of the skull from Sulawe­si, it was­n’t the col­or of the teeth but their wear pat­terns that told the tale. Grif­fith Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Adam Brumm, who led the study, hypoth­e­sizes a “neg­a­tive feed­back loop” in which betel nuts inflict­ed den­tal dam­age on these ancient peo­ples, but also offered the only means of reliev­ing the pain of that dam­age. Whether now or 25,000 years ago, if one sub­stance seems to be both caus­ing your prob­lems and pro­vid­ing their solu­tions, it’s prob­a­bly time to quit.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Humans First Start­ed Enjoy­ing Cannabis in Chi­na Cir­ca 2800 BC

Sci­en­tists Dis­cov­er that Ancient Egyp­tians Drank Hal­lu­cino­genic Cock­tails from 2,300 Year-Old Mug

The Drugs Used by the Ancient Greeks and Romans

The Romans Stashed Hal­lu­cino­genic Seeds in a Vial Made From an Ani­mal Bone

Did Psy­che­del­ic Mush­rooms Appear in Medieval Chris­t­ian Art?: A Video Essay

Hofmann’s Potion: 2002 Doc­u­men­tary Revis­its the His­to­ry of LSD

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.