The betel nut wear pattern is specific to betel nut use, but other plants used by sustained sucking or chewing might produce their own diagnostic wear patterns that have not yet been identified.

Fifth, the re-examination of assumptions about the timeline of human drug use in the light of the Sulawesi evidence.

The working assumptions of the field need updating, and that updating will shape which questions are asked and which specimens are investigated in the coming years.

The teeth from Leang Bulu Bettue have opened a door.

What lies beyond it — how much further back the human relationship with psychoactive plants extends, how widespread it was among prehistoric populations, what it meant for human cognitive and cultural evolution — will take years of further research to address.

The End Of The Beginning