Among the most distinctive Toalean tools are the Maros points — extraordinarily small, symmetrically worked stone projectile points that are among the most refined small stone tools from anywhere in the world.

The Toalean people were hunter-gatherers operating in the karst landscape of South Sulawesi during the Holocene — the warm period after the Ice Age.

They were contemporary with the development of agriculture in much of the rest of the world but did not themselves practice farming.

Agriculture reached Sulawesi only relatively recently, meaning that the Toalean tradition represents a sustained forager adaptation in a tropical island environment.

The association of CPL-R2a with the Toalean technocomplex is significant because it shows that betel nut use was not limited to the Ice Age period represented by Maros-LBB-1a.