The 25,000-Year-Old Teeth That Just Rewrote The History Of Human Drug Use
The alertness-producing and fatigue-suppressing effects of arecoline would have been genuinely useful for people engaged in physically demanding activities that required sustained attention and energy.
A hunter or gatherer who discovered that certain nuts made them feel more energetic and alert would have reason to continue using them.
Social transmission.
The most parsimonious explanation is that the behavior was learned by observing others.
If some members of the forager’s group were already using betel nuts, the individual would have learned the behavior socially.
The question of why the group first adopted it still applies, but the spread of the habit within a group might be purely social.
Ritual or ceremonial context.
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