Archaeologists Discover the World's Oldest Evidence of Habitual Drug Use in the Teeth of a Hunter-Gatherer Who Lived Up to 25,000 Years Ago

Archaeologists examining teeth from a prehistoric individual in Indonesia say the remains preserve what may be the oldest known sign of repeated psychoactive substance use. The hunter-gatherer lived roughly 16,000 to 25,000 years ago and appears to have repeatedly held or sucked seeds from the areca palm, widely called betel nuts. That practice etched a distinctive pattern into the teeth and may have become entwined with a worsening cycle of oral pain and temporary relief.

The evidence centers on an upper jaw and molars that survived for thousands of years in a cave on Sulawesi, an Indonesian island. Researchers have not established the individual’s sex. Still, the preserved teeth offer an exceptionally intimate trace of a routine carried out during life, rather than only a record of what was deposited with the dead. It is a small set of remains with unusually large implications for the study of early human behavior.

Betel nuts are the seeds of the areca palm and are associated with mind-altering effects. The researchers say their use could numb the mouth, potentially giving the person short-lived relief from a toothache. That possible benefit matters because tooth pain can shape repeated behavior. A material that dulls discomfort may become more attractive when there are few other ways to address it, even if continued use brings its own harms.

The study, published this week in Science Advances, treats the dental markings as evidence of a continuing habit, not a single episode involving a psychoactive plant. Grooves on the teeth are the key clue. According to the researchers’ interpretation, the pattern fits repeated placement and manipulation of the nuts in the mouth over time. That distinction underpins the finding’s broader importance: it points to regular use rather than a chance encounter.

If that reading is confirmed by further work, the Sulawesi teeth would shift the timeline for evidence of habitual drug use further back than any currently known example. The claim is not simply that ancient people encountered plants with psychoactive properties. Instead, the teeth may show a persistent relationship between one person and a substance whose effects included numbness. Archaeology rarely preserves direct testimony about such private, repeated choices, which makes the dental evidence especially notable.

The apparent habit seems to have come with a painful consequence. The researchers found that it exacerbated dental disease in this individual. Damage associated with the practice would itself have caused discomfort, creating a plausible cycle: the nuts may have soothed a sore mouth in the near term while aggravating the conditions that produced pain. The case therefore offers an early example of how relief-seeking behavior and bodily harm can become connected.

Teeth can serve as an archive of everyday activity because their surfaces retain evidence of contact and pressure. In this instance, researchers are reading the wear not primarily as a dietary signal, but as a mark left by a particular way of using areca seeds. The interpretation adds a behavioral dimension to remains that might otherwise be discussed mainly in terms of age, anatomy or disease. It also shows how minute alterations can change the story told by a cave find.

There are important limits to what the evidence can establish. “Drug use” is a modern label applied to a prehistoric pattern, while the physical record directly documents grooves linked to repeated betel-nut use. The person’s exact motivations, how often the nuts were used, and whether others shared the practice remain unknown. The idea that numbness helped manage tooth pain is a reasoned possibility, not a firsthand account preserved from the individual.

Future comparisons with teeth from other people and sites could help determine whether the Sulawesi case reflects an individual response to dental distress or a more widely shared practice. For now, the jaw and molars provide an unusually personal glimpse of life in a distant hunter-gatherer world. They suggest that one person may have repeatedly turned to a psychoactive plant for relief, while the same behavior may have made an already unhealthy mouth worse.

Source: Smithsonian Magazine