Indonesian Foragers 25,000 Years Ago May Have Consumed Psychoactive Betel Nuts

A study of two rare skeletons from Sulawesi, Indonesia, uncovered pronounced tooth wear and chemical traces of a psychoactive compound in the teeth. The wear patterns and residue point to the habitual sucking of hard, abrasive betel nuts, a practice that appears to have produced mind‑altering effects. Radiocarbon dating places the remains at about 25,000 years ago, making them the earliest known evidence of deliberate drug use by humans. The findings suggest that early hunter‑gatherers in Southeast Asia engaged in complex cultural behaviors that included the intentional ingestion of psychoactive substances. This discovery expands the timeline of human experimentation with mind‑altering plants and provides new insight into the social and ritual life of prehistoric communities.