Humans have been getting high for longer than you might assume. Researchers have found evidence that ancient humans chewed on betel nuts, a stimulant still widely used today. The seed may have been employed as a painkiller or as a social and cultural practice still influencing its modern use.
A dated drug
Researchers analyzed the teeth of early human foragers from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and found “dental pathology” most likely attributed to the “habitual sucking of whole betel nuts,” said a study published in the journal Science Advances. The earliest human remains studied were dated to 25,000 to 16,000 years ago, and the other was dated 7,600 to 6,300 years ago. Written accounts of betel nut chewing go back approximately 2,000 years, while previous archaeological evidence goes back about 3,500 years. The new findings extend the potential betel nut use by tens of thousands of years.
The two skeletal remains, while dated over 10,000 years apart, “shared a common trait: deep, rounded grooves in some of their teeth,” the authors of the study said at The Conversation. The grooves were “unlike any previously documented form of prehistoric dental wear” and “pointed to an unusual activity, performed repeatedly over a long period.” The researchers compared the dental wear to “‘clay pipe facets’ seen in people from the colonial period.” The facets were “rounded notches worn into the teeth of habitual smokers who regularly clenched the abrasive stems of clay tobacco pipes.”
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This similarity led the researchers to the betel nut, as the “rounded seeds of the Areca catechu palm generally match the size and shape of the grooves,” said the authors at The Conversation. While not well known in the U.S., the betel nut is “one of the world’s most popular intoxicants,” especially in Southeast Asia, said Popular Science. The seeds are generally “prepared by grinding and processing the plant seeds with slaked lime (calcium hydroxide),” then “often combined with additional ingredients such as flavoring spices or tobacco.” Chewing the drug produces a euphoric effect because of a psychoactive ingredient called arecoline, and millions of people are still betel users today.
A time-honored tradition
Prehistoric humans likely used betel nuts as painkillers, but in chewing on them, they “wore their teeth down to the pulp, which would have been excruciating,” said The New York Times. Because of the pain from tooth damage, the may have upped their betel nut consumption, ultimately worsening the addiction. “It’s strong evidence that this was an early form of drug use,” and it “appears to be what then gave rise to this modern, very widespread tradition throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Adam Brumm, a professor of archaeology in the Australian Research Center for Human Evolution at Griffith University and the lead author of the study, said to the Times.
It is “fascinating to see the negative effects that drug addiction, if you want to call it that, had on ancient people before the development of alcohol, nicotine and caffeine,” Brumm told the Times. The seed may also hold significant social and cultural importance, making it more than just a drug today. “Modern betel-nut chewing is definitely a very social thing, and it has very deep symbolism in lots of cultures,” Brumm said.
