The researchers didn’t just find chemical traces of arecoline and unusual dental wear.

They also tested whether the behavior implied by that wear could actually produce the drug effect.

It can.

The use of frog egg cells expressing human receptors is a standard, well-validated approach in pharmacology for testing how compounds interact with human neurochemistry.

The fact that this approach was applied in an archaeological study is itself notable — it illustrates the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of modern archaeochemistry, in which researchers bring pharmaceutical and biochemical methods to bear on questions about ancient human behavior.

Betel Nut Today: The Modern Context