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Stone Age man took drugs, say scientists

It has long been suspected that humans have an ancient history of drug use, but there has been a lack of proof to support the theory.

Now, however, researchers have found equipment used to prepare hallucinogenic drugs for sniffing, and dated them back to prehistoric South American tribes. Quetta Kaye, of University College London, and Scott Fitzpatrick, an archaeologist from North Carolina State University, made the breakthrough on the Caribbean island of Carriacou.

They found ceramic bowls, as well as tubes for inhaling drug fumes or powders, which appear to have originated in South America between 100BC and 400BC and were then carried 400 miles to the islands.

Scientists believe that the drug being used was cohoba, a hallucinogen made from the beans of a mimosa species. Drugs such as cannabis were not found in the Caribbean then.

Posted By Psychotrophic at 2008-10-19 19:47:55 permalink | comments
Tags: archaeology dmt snuff mimosa
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Anonymous. : 2010-03-31 07:25:34
"haha they probably would of been better off just using ayahuasca... their neighbors in the brazilian rainforests were brewing potent blends of indigenous psychoactives at this time containing mismosa vine and other alkaloids. you need to ingest a MAOI in order to really trip from mismosa extract and this probably wopuld of saved their noses alot of pain!"

This is inaccurate. There was some ethnobotanical use of mimosa (which is a tree, not a vine, by the way) in Brazil, but the alkaloids were activated by other components in the bark witch can act as MAO inhibitors, provided enough is drank and the preparation is made cold (these components are heat sensitive--see Calawway's analysis and Ott's experiential reports). There is no evidence that mimosa was ever used with ayahuasca in traditional contexts; that's a more modern invention.

Juniorsenior9. : 2010-03-30 12:30:49
haha they probably would of been better off just using ayahuasca... their neighbors in the brazilian rainforests were brewing potent blends of indigenous psychoactives at this time containing mismosa vine and other alkaloids. you need to ingest a MAOI in order to really trip from mismosa extract and this probably wopuld of saved their noses alot of pain!
Technoshaman. : 2008-10-27 07:02:33
Those beans contain DMT by the way, and still consumed by the tribes in the Amazons ;)
agent_of_truth : 2008-10-21 10:38:53
Yeah, history goes back about 5000 years, or 3000 BCE. The article even says "as far back as 5000 years ago". This time frame(100-400BCE) is around the same time as Ancient Greece's peak. And we all know the Greeks liked their Kykeon, presumably containing ergot. Still, interesting to note that drug use was carried by travellers around the world, even back in those days.
Nowhere Girl. : 2008-10-21 02:07:27
Hey, but is just 100 or 400 years BC really "Stone Age"? ;)
awful puns dept.. : 2008-10-20 07:54:06
So when do they believe the Stoned Age began?

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