Page 206 - ILIAS ATHANASIADIS AKA RO1

Evidence confirming human drug use dates back further than most of us

realize. While written documentation from the Pre-Classical (2,000

B.C.E – 1,000 B.C.E.) and Classical (1,000 B.C.E – 500 C.E) periods

conclusively verify the use of.

Opium, cannabis, alcohol, tobacco, and various forms of fungi for

religious, medicinal, and occasionally recreational purposes, discoveries

in the past decade reveal the presence of psychoactive

– commonly known as mind-altering – substances in the human

archaeological record long before the practice of written record-keeping.

Research published in 2014 by Elisa Guerra-Doce.

A professor of Archaeology and Prehistory at the University of

Valladolid in Spain, examines the presence of what modern humans

would call intoxicants in four distinct archeological spaces:

These fossils, relics, and chemical traces date back as early as the

Neolithic Period (12,000 – 2,000 B.C.E.).

Contemporary scientific methods show the presence of poppy seeds
stuck between human teeth, burnt cannabis seeds in ceremonial bowls,

Alcohol residue on ceramic drinking vessels, and abstract art thought to

illustrate the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in sacred rituals.

Peyote buttons containing psychoactive alkaloids found in Neolithic

sites in the Rio Grande in present-day Texas,

And cocaine metabolites found in mummies in the South American

Andes Mountains in present-day Chile further confirm the use of drugs
by prehistoric humans for ritualistic purposes.