Not in the form of a processed quid — the Pleistocene forager who wore those distinctive grooves into their molars was doing something different, something that left a completely different kind of dental damage from what modern betel quid users exhibit.

They were sucking the nut whole.

The Study And How It Was Done

The paper that changed the timeline of human drug use was the product of an international research team led by Brumm, working through Griffith University’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE).

His co-authors included Melandri Vlok, who conducted the dental wear analysis; Roger L.

Papke, who led the pharmacological experiments; Carney D.

Matheson, who conducted the chemical analysis; and a large team of Indonesian archaeologists and researchers from institutions including Hasanuddin University in Makassar, who have been excavating these Sulawesi sites for years.