Summing up the specific contributions of the Sulawesi study, beyond the headline finding:

The formal description of a new dental pathological pattern — smooth, rounded, hollowed-out grooves produced by sustained nut-sucking — that can be applied as a diagnostic marker in other archaeological specimens.

This is a methodological contribution that will outlast the specific finding.

The demonstration that arecoline can be detected in fossilized dental tissue from specimens at least 25,000 years old.

This extends the range of archaeochemical detection for this class of compound and validates the dental tissue as an archive for evidence of psychoactive plant use.

The experimental confirmation that sucking intact areca nuts releases pharmacologically active arecoline.