Anthropology Assistant Clinical Professor Mario Zimmermann co-authored an article published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. The project focused on the social and temporal dimensions of psychoactive plant use in prehistoric Southeast Asia, employs biomolecular methods to provide direct evidence of betel nut chewing in residues extracted from dental calculus of burials excavated at Nong Ratchawat in central Thailand.
Experimental control samples were studied in combination with 36 archaeological samples from six ∼4,000-year-old individuals, which revealed diagnostic arecoline and arecaidine derivatives in a single female burial, representing the earliest such evidence in Southeast Asia. This identification demonstrates the power of dental calculus analysis to illuminate prehistoric psychoactive substance use. The study pushes back the antiquity of betel nut consumption, a practice that is still deeply engrained in many communities throughout Southeast Asia.