Lifestyle
Humans Used Mind-Altering Drugs 25,000 Years Ago, New Discovery Shows
Scientists found evidence that people in the Ice Age chewed on special nuts to get a 'high,' proving our habit for drugs is much older than we thought.
Close-up of ancient human teeth showing signs of wear and chemical traces from psychoactive nuts.
By John Doe
Reporting from Indonesia 
Sept. 13, 2026, 1:54 a.m. - 2 hours ago
It turns out humans have been looking for ways to change their mood for a very long time. Scientists just found the oldest proof yet that people were using mind-altering drugs way back in the Ice Age.
Researchers looked at the teeth of a person who lived about 25,000 years ago. This person was a hunter-gatherer living in what is now Indonesia. When the team looked closely at the teeth, they found small bits of material that did not belong there.
These bits came from a plant called areca. Today, people in parts of the world still chew these nuts. It acts like a mild drug that can make you feel alert or give you a little buzz.
Before this discovery, many experts thought people only started using these kinds of plants much later in history. Finding this evidence proves that our ancestors were experimenting with these plants thousands of years earlier than we expected.
It seems that even in the harsh conditions of the Ice Age, people were already finding ways to change how they felt or to get a little extra energy during the day. It shows that the human desire to use substances to feel different is a very old habit indeed.
Source: CNN
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