If we pulled the thread we can get an idea of to what extent our ancestors went to drug trancas. We knew, for example, that the barbarians were so blind that we could explain much of the wars of antiquity. Even two mummies have told us to what extent the cocaine was established in past centuries.
Now, some teeth aim to offer us the “beginning” of this historical consumption.
The finding. A team of Thai researchers has managed to identify chemical remains of the consumption of Betel in the dental plate of a woman between 25 and 35 years buried about 4,000 years ago in Nong Ratchawat, in the center of Thailand. The finding represents the oldest direct evidence ever discovered from the use of Betel, a psychoactive practice that, despite being little known in the West, continues to be one of the most popular in the world, only surpassed by tobacco, coffee and alcohol.
The study, which was based on advanced liquid chromatography techniques coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS), analyzed 36 samples of mineralized dental plate of several burials of the Bronze Age, and three of them offered unequivocal positive results that coincide with the chemical profiles of the Betel prepared according to traditional methods.
Make the impossible visible. The key to this advance does not only reside in the identification of plant remains, but in the applied methodology. The positive sample contained traces of Arecaidine (from the Areca nut), Hydroxychavicol (from the betel leaf), and nicotine, probably due to the occasional use of tobacco as part of the mixture.
To validate its results, the team led by Piyawit Moonkham experimentally replied the ancestral chewing process, using dry areca nut, betel leaves, pink lime paste, Senegalia cortex cortex, tobacco, and human saliva, with the aim of generating a precise reference with which to compare the old samples.
Lost uses. This unusually detailed approach allowed to detect molecules that leave no visual trace and that would have been impossible to identify through traditional archaeological techniques.
According to the study co -author, Shannon Tushingham, this strategy not only reveals lost uses of the past, but opens a new way to rebuild cultural practices through biomolecular waste, even when there is no visible indication of them.
Archaeological Site in Nong Ratchawat where teeth samples originated
A living tradition. The Betel, or more specifically the Quid of Betel, is the name that receives the preparation composed of the area of Areca wrapped in the Betel leaf and usually accompanied by lime off. This combination releases Arecolina, an alkaloid substance that produces mild stimulating effects, as a sensation of alertness, warmth and well -being. Despite its invisibility in the official drug history, Betel has a deeply rooted social and ceremonial role in many Asian and Oceanic cultures.
For millennia, it has been used in passage rituals, festive events, and even as an element of community cohesion. The finding in Thailand demonstrates that this practice was already consolidated in Southeast Asia a thousand years before what was thought, challenging the linear narratives of cultural development and offering a new window to the intangible past.
Legacy with consequences. The discovery is not exempt from medical and social implications. Today, Betel is an extended habit in countries like Papua New Guinea, where 50% of the population chews regularly, and where the highest oral cancer rate on the planet has been documented. Chronic consumption has also been linked to liver diseases, metabolic syndrome, cirrhosis and renal damage.
However, Betel also has antioxidant, antiparasitic, anti -inflammatory and antiseptic properties, which complicates its classification as a mere “harmful drug.” This ambivalence has fed its cultural permanence and has raised disparate responses in the different countries.
Consume Bethel. In Taiwan, for example, consumption has decreased significantly among young people civility Thanks to public health campaigns, but Betel is still linked to a very particular aesthetic: that of the Bīnláng Xīshī or “Beauties of the Betel”, young women dressed in provocative attire that sell the product in road shop windows.
This phenomenon, already in decline, has given way to a more conservative version, with major vendors in closed positions or night markets, but remains a living expression of cultural identity and historical memory.
Knowledge in front of stigma. One of the axes of the study was to underline that practices such as Betel consumption should not be reduced to the category of “drugs” under contemporary western standards. Far from that, they represent medical, spiritual and community knowledge transmitted for generations, often ignored by classical archeology.
By identifying these chemical waste, the dental calculation analysis not only rewrites the history of the Betel, but also offers a framework to reassess many other psychoactive plants whose use has been invisible or repressed. As Moonkham states, understanding the cultural context of the use of traditional plants is essential to recognize its true anthropological value and to generate a more nuanced dialogue around substance consumption.
Fascinating, since the dental calculation has returned the image of an anonymous woman who, 4,000 years ago, shared with her community a practice that still survives. A silent proof that human desire to alter consciousness, share experiences and ritualize the body has roots as deep as history itself.
Imagine | Ffgss/wikimedia Commons, Piyawit Moonkham
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