Whether the foragers learned from each other by observation, whether there were specific individuals who knew about the betel nut’s properties and taught others, whether the practice was transmitted from adult to child as part of cultural knowledge — all of this is invisible to archaeology.

It cannot tell us what the experience was like for the individuals.

What it felt like to have the stimulant effect, how it integrated into daily life, whether it was used at specific times or continuously — these are questions the physical evidence cannot answer.

It cannot tell us whether the practice continued uninterrupted from 25,000 years ago to the modern use of betel quid in Sulawesi.

There may have been continuity, there may have been interruptions and reinventions, there may have been multiple independent discoveries of the same plant’s properties.