The 25,000-Year-Old Teeth That Just Rewrote The History Of Human Drug Use

As old, at least, as 25,000 years ago.

And probably older.

The Toalean Context: Understanding The Younger Specimen

The second individual — CPL-R2a — is associated with the Toalean technocomplex, and understanding what this means provides important cultural context for the betel nut use documented in the younger specimen.

The Toalean is a distinctive foraging culture that has been identified at multiple sites in South Sulawesi, dated to roughly 8,000 to 1,500 years ago.

It is named for the Toala people — an indigenous group of the Maros-Pangkep region — and it is characterized by specific stone tool types that are found nowhere else in the world.