Humans may have been using psychoactive substances as far back as 25,000 years ago, long before the emergence of farming, cities and written language.
Scientists have found what they believe is the oldest direct evidence of habitual psychoactive drug use in the teeth of prehistoric hunter-gatherers on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.
Researchers examined the teeth of two individuals who lived thousands of years apart and found unusually deep, rounded grooves. The older individual lived between 16,000 and 25,000 years ago, while the other lived around 6,300 to 7,600 years ago.
The researchers believe the marks were caused by repeatedly holding and sucking hard, round objects. Further analysis detected arecoline, the main psychoactive compound found in betel nuts.
The team also soaked whole betel nuts in artificial saliva and found that sucking the nuts released arecoline, which can affect receptors in the human brain.
Betel nuts can cause mild euphoria, increased alertness and numbness in the mouth. Researchers believe the ancient people may have used them to relieve tooth pain, as both individuals had serious dental problems.
However, regularly sucking the hard nuts also appears to have damaged their teeth, potentially creating a cycle in which the substance was used to relieve pain caused partly by the habit itself.
The findings, published in Science Advances, push direct evidence of habitual psychoactive plant use thousands of years further into the past.
Betel nut remains widely consumed today and is among the world’s most commonly used psychoactive substances, alongside alcohol, caffeine and nicotine.
The post Scientists Discover Humans Were Using Drugs 25,000 Years Ago appeared first on ProPakistani.
