The person whose teeth were found at Leang Bulu Bettue was the same kind of human.

They lived in or near the same karst landscape.

They may have known about, or lived alongside, the people who made the cave paintings.

Their relationship with the areca palm was one element of a full human life that included all the cognitive and social complexity of modern humanity.

The cave preserved both kinds of evidence.

The art on the walls, visible and vivid after 45,000 years.

The chemical traces in the teeth, invisible until chemical analysis revealed them, persisting for 25,000 years in the dental tissue of a jaw fragment and three molars.