Archaeologists Have Found Evidence of a Drug Room and ‘Snuff Tubes' at an Ancient Site in Peru
The researchers found the room at Chavín de Huántar, a major archaeological site in the Peruvian highlands constructed by the Chavín, a pre-Incan culture that flourished between 900 and 200 B.C.
The small size of the room has led archaeologists to hypothesize that only a few Chavín elite were allowed to partake in the ritualistic drug useArchaeologists have discovered evidence of psychedelic drug use and 'snuff tubes" in a formally sealed-off chamber at an ancient site in Peru, according to a new study.
The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal PNAS, states that the previously unknown chamber was discovered at Chavín de Huántar, an archaeological site in the Peruvian highlands constructed by the Chavín, a major pre-Incan culture that thrived between 900 and 200 B.C.
The room was found to contain 23 artifacts 'associated with consumption of psychoactive plants' — including hollowed-out bird bones thought to be used as 'snuff tubes.'
Further micro-botanical and chemical analyses confirmed traces of 'psychoactive plants" — also known as hallucinogens — and six of them specifically contained traces of tobacco and DMT, a drug commonly found in ayahuasca.
The study's authors note that while Chavín rituals involving hallucinogenic drugs have 'long been hypothesized,' this is the first time these substances have been directly identified at the site.
"The tubes are analogous to the rolled-up bills that high-rollers snort cocaine through in the movies," Daniel Contreras, an archaeologist at the University of Florida, told Live Science.
"The tubes would have been used — we think — as inhalers for taking the snuff through the nose,' he added.
Chavín de Huántar, located in the Peruvian highlands, was a center for ritual activity, according to the outlet. The large complex is made up of stone structures built around open plazas, and as additional structures were added over time, several rooms became interior spaces — which is how the room containing the 23 artifacts became hidden.
In a statement to CBS News, Contreras further noted that the small size of the interior rooms — which could only hold a few people at a time — could indicate that drug use was used to reinforce social hierarchy, and that perhaps only an elite class was allowed to partake.
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"This is compelling evidence that psychoactive plants were part of formalized and tightly-controlled rituals rather than individual vision-quests or shamanic healing practices," Contreras told the outlet.
"As such, they seem to have been an important element in the long-term transition from small egalitarian societies to large stratified ones, where social, political, and economic inequality were thought of as normal and to be expected rather than unusual," he added.
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Ackermann studies variation and hybridization — the exchange of genes between different groups — across the evolutionary history of hominins, to better understand how genetic and cultural exchange made us human. And she thinks hybridization both within and outside Africa played a significant role in our origins. Evidence of such hybridization has come out in a steady stream since the first Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010. That research program, which earned geneticist Svante Pääbo a Nobel Prize in 2022, revealed that H. sapiens and Neanderthals regularly had sex. It also led to the discovery of the Denisovans, a previously unknown population that ranged across Asia from about 200,000 to 30,000 years ago and that also had offspring with both Neanderthals and H. sapiens. "You have so much complexity that it makes no sense to say there was only one origin of sapiens. There can't be one universal model that explains literally every human on Earth." 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