His detection of arecoline in the fossilized dental tissue is the central chemical finding that the interpretation rests on.

The Indonesian co-authors — affiliated with institutions including Hasanuddin University in Makassar and others — brought both the specific expertise in Sulawesi archaeology that the project required and the local knowledge and relationships that made the fieldwork possible.

This team composition — Australian archaeologists, American pharmacologists, Indonesian archaeologists, specialists in dental pathology and archaeochemistry — reflects the increasingly international and interdisciplinary character of major archaeological research.

No single person or single discipline could have produced these findings.