The title will be remembered: “Betel nut sucking is the earliest recorded evidence for the habitual use of a neuroactive plant drug.” The DOI will be cited: 10.1126/sciadv.aei1901.

The lead author will be cited: Adam Brumm, Griffith University, Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution.

And somewhere in the karst caves of South Sulawesi, in the limestone that has held so many secrets for so long, the question of what else is preserved — what other evidence of ancient human behavior waits in the ancient deposits, in the as-yet-unexcavated sections of the cave floor — remains open.

The answer to that question may produce the next discovery.