Humans may have used popular addictive stimulant 25,000 years ago

Key Points:

• Archaeologists discovered prehistoric remains on Sulawesi, Indonesia, showing evidence of betel nut use by foragers between 25,000 and 16,000 years ago, predating previously known drug use traditions by thousands of years.
• The dental grooves and chemical traces of arecoline found in the remains suggest habitual sucking on whole betel nuts, likely used as a traditional pain reliever despite causing severe dental damage and addiction.
• This early form of betel nut use lacked the slaked lime additive that enhances psychoactive effects, but biochemical tests confirmed that even whole nuts released enough arecoline to alter brain function.
• The practice of betel nut consumption likely evolved from forager traditions to more potent chewing methods introduced by Neolithic Austronesian farmers around 4,000 years ago, who added slaked lime to increase psychoactive effects.
• The findings underline that humans have consumed psychoactive and nondietary substances for tens of thousands of years for pain relief, social, and ritual purposes, extending the timeline of early substance use well before agriculture.