Betel Nut Traces in 25,000-Year-Old Teeth Point to Early Human Drug Use
Scientists found tooth grooves and chemical traces showing two Ice Age hunter-gatherers on Sulawesi regularly used betel nuts, a habit linked to pain relief.
9 Articles
9 Articles
In the western world it is relatively unknown, so it is easy that you have never heard of it, but the areca nut, a tropical palm, is one of the most popular plant-based drugs in Asia and the South Pacific. It uses almost a tenth of the world’s population and is the fourth most psychoactive substance consumed on the planet, after alcohol, caffeine and nicotine. Traditionally it is chewed in the form of a mixture wrapped in betel leaf, a climbing …
A team of researchers has found evidence of repeated sucking of whole betel nuts in two hunter-gatherers on the island of Célebes (Sulawesi), long before the appearance of Hemeroteca agriculture - Humans already made large bone knives 1.5 million years ago: “It was the Swiss knife of the Paleolithic” When did humanity begin to take psychotropic substances? Consensus places the first regular consumption of these compounds in the agricultural revo…
Two skeletons of hunter-gatherers reveal that the use of psychoactive substances in human communities is older than what has been documented so far: the use of betel nut, one of the most consumed drugs today, emerged among some communities 25,000 years ago. Read
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