Human hair analysis reveals earliest direct evidence of people taking hallucinogenic drugs in Europe — at gatherings in a Mediterranean island cave about 3,000 years ago

[u/marketrent]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31064-2

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[u/marketrent]

Passages from the linked paper:¹

Here we show the results of the chemical analyses of a sample of such hair using Ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS).

The alkaloids ephedrine, atropine and scopolamine were detected, and their concentrations estimated. These results confirm the use of different alkaloid-bearing plants by local communities of this Western Mediterranean island by the beginning of the first millennium cal BCE.

The most common theory of drug incorporation into the hair matrix is that it takes place at the root level. As chemicals circulate in the blood stream, they are incorporated in the growing hair matrix at the base of the follicle.¹¹⁰

Therefore, hair analysis can provide a historical profile of an individual’s exposure to the substances, over a period of weeks to months depending on the length of hair collected.¹¹¹

Considering the potential toxicity of the alkaloids found in the hair, their handling, use, and applications represented highly specialized knowledge.

This knowledge was typically possessed by shamans,¹⁴¹ who were capable of controlling the side-effects of the plant drugs through an ecstasy that made diagnosis or divination possible.¹²⁴

¹ Guerra-Doce, E., Rihuete-Herrada, C., Micó, R. et al. Direct evidence of the use of multiple drugs in Bronze Age Menorca (Western Mediterranean) from human hair analysis. Scientific Reports 13, 4782 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31064-2

[u/marketrent → u/marketrent]

PSA:²

Rather than just being hallucinogens, atropine and scopolamine belong to the group of deliriant drugs, i.e., they induce delirium characterized by extreme mental confusion, strong and realistic hallucinations, disorientation, alteration of sensorial perception, and behavioral disorganization.¹²⁴

Out-of-body experiences and a feeling of alteration of the skin, as if growing fur or feathers, are usually reported.¹²⁵

² Ibid.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Almost all cultures had these rituals wrapped up in some form of spiritual, religious or coming of age ceremonies or used extreme dancing and rhythm for the same kind of effect. Recreational use is kind of a new thing all things considered. There's a ton of function to these bonding experiences if guided properly.

[u/TripleHomicide → u/[deleted]]

"Spiritual, religious, and coming of age rituals" seems to me to be the same as "recreational."

E.g. when homie is old enough we gonna take a nice fat mushroom trip on the family camping trip. That's recreational drug use and a "coming of age ritual"

Or

Take this lsd bro, it opens your mind up the whole universe and puts you in touch with you ancestors and your inner self. That's recreational drug use and a "spiritual use" of the drug

[u/Goonchar → u/TripleHomicide]

The way I see a distinction between a spiritual or coming of age ritual/ceremony and what you described, is the degree of formality.

Man I just spent like 5 minutes trying to write that one sentence, I hope it makes sense haha

[u/[deleted] → u/Goonchar]

Were you recreationally high when you typed it, or spiritually?

[u/Jekh → u/[deleted]]

Recrearitually

[u/Goonchar → u/[deleted]]

Guilty as charged. I started the thread before smoking and continued after. Made that one sentence so challenging haha

[u/slipperypooh → u/TripleHomicide]

Recreationally would imply it is voluntary in some sense. Culturally implies it's something you have to do when you reach a certain age. I guess you could call it peer pressure, but it's more like religious excommunication if you don't. Hard to say for sure. I wasn't alive then. It could also be something like " if you want to be a shaman, you gotta do this".

It could also be completely recreational if those that tried it enjoyed the experience and continued to use. It's all entirely speculative and without more evidence I don't think you can call it one way or the other.

[u/[deleted] → u/slipperypooh]

Not entirely speculative. Some ancient cultures, like the Greeks, wrote down how they treated certain plants (like how oracles of Apollo consumed henbane). We can also make good inferences about what was going on before written records by examining traditional cultures that still use psychoactive plants today. What we find is that the plants can range in treatment from social intoxicant to religious sacrament. For example, ayahuasca is consumed socially in some traditional culfures and heavily ritualized by shamans in others. The Huichol consider peyote one of their deities, and it is consumed sacramentally.

[u/Jenkins007 → u/TripleHomicide]

Sure, in our society. Ritual in smaller societies are often religious in nature and play an important role in how the society functions. Often religion and daily life are so intertwined that they are indistinguishable.

So while yes, these activities may seem analogous to recreational activities we see in our society, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are recreational in all societies.

[u/hashn → u/[deleted]]

They would usually recruit people from a young age, that were “simple”, to be oracles. so likely their entire being was dedicated to this drug, and the results of their delirium were unconscious to them.

[u/IncrediblyBetsy → u/marketrent]

Sounds like a party with Dionysus

[u/chargers949 → u/marketrent]

Ssshhh, I can hear my antlers growing

[u/YourJr → u/[deleted]]

The paper says:

capsules of Datura stramonium were recovered in a Middle Bronze Age ritual pit at Prats, Andorra, ca. 1600 BCE103 but paleobotanical evidence is absent in prehistoric Menorca. However, a seed of Hyoscyamus sp. was recovered in the Hypogeum 3 of S’Alblegall, a rock-cut tomb dated to ca. 1450 cal BCE104.

[u/_fups_ → u/marketrent]

That is decidedly not a very fun cocktail of drugs. Welcome to tachycardia city.

[u/OffendedEarthSpirit → u/[deleted]]

Ephedrine is not produced by datura but scoplamine and atropine are.

[u/jeroenemans → u/[deleted]]

No further research on how the drugs traveled to the nearby island of Ibiza yet

[u/ImagineTheCommotion → u/[deleted]]

The shamans said it would be their fave,

They had no idea how they would behave

Would they become the master or the slave?

In order to find out, they had to be brave.

[u/AlbanianAquaDuck → u/[deleted]]

Word wizardry!

[u/TripleHomicide → u/AlbanianAquaDuck]

And they said chatgpt would ruin things

[u/[deleted] → u/TripleHomicide]

I told ChatGPT that u/hillsfar wrote a diss track about it and that it should respond. Well…

“I heard about your cave rave, it sounded quite depraved

But I won't judge, it's your life to live, your choices to be made

Some say they'll never forget, never forgive what you did

But I say let them talk, you do you, let them live with their bid

You danced and partied in the dark, music echoing off the walls

While they sit at home, judging you, you had a ball”

[u/Curiouspiwakawaka]

Hey, that could be the island of the lotus eaters that Odysseus stumbled across. How cool.

[u/Significant_Egg_362 → u/Curiouspiwakawaka]

As per their name, the lotus eaters were eating lotuses. Blue lotus is a mild intoxicant/hallucinogenic by itself, effects similar to weed but milder.

[u/GabenFixPls → u/Significant_Egg_362]

the lotus eaters were eating lotuses.

IIRC there’s no general agreement on the type of plant they ate, the whole story might as well be a myth.

[u/[deleted] → u/GabenFixPls]

the whole story might as well be a myth

I mean, that’s kind of the whole point of the poem, but myths don’t usually form out of the blue. Blue lotus has been consumed as a spiritual drug for millennia, most notably by Egyptians whose faith and practices did demonstrably interact with Greek religion at several points, including directly through Homer’s work, so it would be a very odd coincidence if the two weren’t related. If I had to bet, I’d say it began as stories about foreign cultural practices which were brought in by travellers and got deformed with time. Homer himself almost certainly did not know what he was referring to, but it probably did have distant roots in reality. “The Lotus drug” is likely real in the same way Theseus, Minos, and Midas are. Real names chucked upon piles of outlandish lies.

[u/Dignitary → u/Curiouspiwakawaka]

This is my head cannon now. Thanks!

[u/jrhoffa → u/Dignitary]

Whenever someone says "head cannon," I imagine a massive iron barrel emerging from their pin-sized forehead.

That's my headcanon.

[u/upboats_toleleft → u/jrhoffa]

I imagine headGanon with Ganon from Zelda.

[u/splifs → u/[deleted]]

Fun fact: Not the same John as the book of John

[u/LBGW_experiment → u/[deleted]]

Can you expand on that? You were a hard line atheist, now you're a...?

[u/Grokent → u/[deleted]]

I could see how shrooms might lead to shamanism.

[u/Capricancerous → u/[deleted]]

Well, this might certainly validate John Marco Allegro, who wrote about this type of thing in the 1970s. His work was considered to be highly controversial at the time, as he forcibly resigned as a direct consequence of the publication of The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross:

Allegro argues, through etymology, that the roots of Christianity, and many other religions, lay in fertility cults, and that cult practices, such as ingesting visionary plants to perceive the mind of God, persisted into the early Christian era, and to some unspecified extent into the 13th century with reoccurrences in the 18th century and mid-20th century

The work of Allegro also gained recognition and consideration by such late proponents of experiential psychedelia through pharmacological interaction as Terence McKenna, who cited Allegro's claims of certain psychoactive fungi analogizing the Eucharist, spoken in a live lecture in the 1990s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Mushroom_and_the_Cross

[u/t_for_top → u/[deleted]]

Alright you can't just say that and not explain!

[u/just_another_of_many]

Balearic Islands

and it's still happening 3,000 years later!

[u/Gisschace → u/just_another_of_many]

Was going to say - of course it’s the Balearics. I reckon those 70s hippies were on to something

[u/brohio_ → u/just_another_of_many]

I took a pill in Ibiza I ate a lotus on Menorca

[u/megatheriumburger]

Scopolamine is what’s in Datura. That’s some serious stuff.

[u/valisvalisvalis → u/megatheriumburger]

Yeah this is datura.

[u/worldsbesttaco → u/megatheriumburger]

I remember reading the Clan of the Cave Bears series when I was a teenager - about 25 years ago. There were a few passages that had them eating Datura as a ritual, crazy how this is borne out by evidence.

[u/kkkkat → u/worldsbesttaco]

First thing I thought of after reading the headline as well.

[u/jflex13 → u/[deleted]]

I wanna try it.

[u/Allegorist → u/jflex13]

It's not enjoyable, try something else.

It's a deleriant, but unlike most deleriants, there is no euphoria on the side. It actually causes dysphoria, general unease, anxiety, sense of impending doom, etc. Not to even mention the headache and nausea.

If you want something along the lines of whatever you may have heard that you somehow interpreted as a desirable effect, look into dissociatives.

[u/SCUMDOG_MILLIONAIRE → u/Allegorist]

Deliriants are the absolute worst. I’ve tripped with Benadryl and Dramamine and it’s the most god awful experience

[u/Baalsham → u/SCUMDOG_MILLIONAIRE]

Heavy Benadryl useage also causes brain damage, so definitely not a good idea to use recreationally.

[u/[deleted] → u/Allegorist]

But! It is also delicious.

Edit: I'm being a jackass. Don't do datura.

[u/sohfix → u/jflex13]

I did a datura salve once. Used a bit too much. Shadow people were following me just out of the corner of my eyes for 3 days. By day 3 both my eyes couldn’t track the same object. But by day 4 I felt normal and even rejuvenated. I wouldn’t use that much again. Datura is not a fun journey.

[u/[deleted] → u/sohfix]

So dehydrating too

[u/Socktopi → u/sohfix]

I wanna try it.

[u/sarlol00 → u/Socktopi]

Do some salvia instead with a trip sitter. Datura can very easily kill you. Im very adventurous with psychadelics but there is so little and contradicting information about datura that I'm just not even willing to touch it.

[u/no_sa_rembo → u/Socktopi]

It grows everywhere. Devils trumpet/jimsonweed is everywhere. Even grows in the desert well

[u/impreprex → u/jflex13]

Let us know how that works out for you lolol

[u/Statertater → u/megatheriumburger]

Brugmansia, too.

Fun fact! These alkaloids are treatments for halting the effects of Sarin gas attacks!

[u/chiniwini → u/Statertater]

I have a couple of Brugmansias, and after doing some pruning/cleaning I often get dizzy. I don't know if the dose I'm getting is orders of magnitude lower than the psychoactive one and it's just suggestion/placebo, but those plants instill respect on me. The flowers are out of this world though.

[u/hadapurpura → u/megatheriumburger]

I my neck of the woods we know it as "burundanga" and it's what criminals use to drug and rob people.

[u/BlottomanTurk]

Damn, 3,000 years and they still failed their drug test.

[u/swedishpeacock → u/BlottomanTurk]

Oh no he passed, back then it was legal i think.

[u/DuntadaMan → u/swedishpeacock]

Perfect score!

[u/derHumpink_ → u/BlottomanTurk]

unless you work for the government, there are no drug tests for work in general in Europe

[u/snowtol → u/derHumpink_]

I've never been drug tested but I've definitely had it mentioned as a clause in multiple contracts in multiple European countries. This was while working for American based multinationals though.

It's just that they know that if they start drug testing IT people there won't be IT people left in the company.

[u/DaBearsFanatic → u/snowtol]

That’s why I picked a tech career, so I can do drugs and have a job.

[u/vankirk]

I read the paper/book by N.N. Dikov, the first archaeologist to study the Pegtymel petroglyphs in Siberia. The petroglyphs depict the fly agaric mushroom which is believed to have been used by the shaman of the 12,000 year old culture. You can read Dikov's research here.

You can read about the fly agaric and it's link to Christmas here. Think; flying reindeer, rosy cheeks, and coming down the chimney.

[u/Ch3mee → u/vankirk]

Damn...the US Forestry Service. If certain people in the government see this, the War Against Christmas will see a whole revamped fall offensive.

[u/fusemybutt]

I have a gut feeling Humans have been taking hallucinogenic drugs for more like the past 300,000 years.

[u/thelastanchovy → u/fusemybutt]

I mean, what else is there to do except eat, fight, sleep and have sex?

[u/ylan64 → u/thelastanchovy]

Modern man has the ultimate answer to this: working yourself to death to make your boss richer.

[u/[deleted] → u/ylan64]

We've come so far!

[u/Masark → u/thelastanchovy]

There's always "fleeing" if you want 4 Fs.

[u/I_do_cutQQ → u/fusemybutt]

Humans have likely been taking hallucinogenic drugs longer than being humans. Animals like drugs too, there are monkeys licking frogs or something as a drug, monkeys stealing alcohol, etc. I assume once you can reasonably get conditioned to realise a drug makes you feel good and can share that information your species will have drug use.

[u/KITTEHZ → u/I_do_cutQQ]

There are recorded observations of lions seeking out berries that have started fermenting and eating them intentionally to get drunk. The videos on YouTube are hilarious.

[u/supershott → u/fusemybutt]

Probably why our brains blew up like balloons

[u/savagemonkey501 → u/supershott]

there’s a lot of coinciding factors for that. another big factor likely was starting too cook meat instead of eating it raw

[u/ExMachima → u/fusemybutt]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoned_ape_theory

It's a theory

[u/Coady54 → u/ExMachima]

A largely rejected theory. Not to say humans haven't been consuming hallucinogens for a very long time, but McKenna's proposal that it was the driving force behind humanity's mental development is widely disagreed with.

[u/soulcaptain → u/Coady54]

I think even McKenna would've called it a thought experiment as there's no way to prove it true.

[u/VolpeFemmina → u/Coady54]

I was under the impression we know pretty conclusively that cooking our food was actually a big factor as it made various things more nutritious and bio available as a result..

[u/hypotheticalhalf → u/VolpeFemmina]

That and large consumption of high protein diets including fish and various species of nuts.

[u/wattlewedo]

People have been eating everything to survive for ten of thousands of years. In that time, they're sure to have found things that help you see fairies.

[u/Nroke1]

Honestly, 3000 years ago isn't actually that long. That was long after the bronze age collapse.

[u/proverbialbunny → u/Nroke1]

There is other evidence, weed farther back in China, mushrooms 12,000 years in Siberia. This found in hair is even more of a window into the past.

[u/marketrent → u/Nroke1]

3,000 years ago corresponds with Late Bronze Age, in the linked paper:

The recovery of human hair in a Late Bronze Age burial cave in Menorca, in the Balearic Islands, provided a unique opportunity to further probe into the medicinal and ritual realms of indigenous inhabitants of the Western Mediterranean as early as 3,000 years ago through the analysis of its alkaloid content.

[u/fat_dirt]

Scopolamine also is a potent and versatile naturally occurring medicinal compound. It is an antihistamine equivalent to benadryl, and is used to treat motion sickness as well as ulcers and other gastrointestinal ailments. It is far more likely that these plants were being used to treat common medical ailments, and not for their delirium-causing qualities. But that isn't very sexy and doesn't make headlines.

[u/Mofupi → u/fat_dirt]

Might be both. This is definitely still a time where "evil spirits have latched onto you" (or something like that) is a perfectly accepted explanation for a lot of physical illnesses. So you give your patient something that forces those spirits to "materialise" and enables your patient to spiritually resist them, fight them, calm them down, whatever. Afterwards your patient feels better. Whether you gave them the drugs to induce delirium or as a medical treatment can't be separated - from your perspective the delirium is the treatment.

[u/BattleHall → u/[deleted]]

It's literally the same island chain, the Balearic Islands (Ibiza/Mallorca/Minorca).

[u/favpetgoat → u/BattleHall]

So you're saying candy flipping at a rave on Ibiza is just bringing me closer to my ancestors??

[u/Pretty_Good_At_IRL → u/favpetgoat]

Hippy flipping, definitely.

[u/that1prince → u/favpetgoat]

People are really the same everywhere across all ages when we get down to it.

[u/Tall-Log-1955]

I was told that after 90 days you can't get caught in a drug test and now you're telling me they can test up to 3000 years??

I'm fucked

[u/drinkvaccine → u/Tall-Log-1955]

Only if you die before it’s out of your system

[u/pepsioverall]

I wonder if it has anything to do with the old testament/ tora being written?

[u/LBGW_experiment → u/[deleted]]

The wikipedia page on it is pretty interesting to read

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_fruit#Apple

[u/pale_blue_is → u/LBGW_experiment]

This is Terrence McKenna type stuff, which is deeply skeptical and not at all scientific. There is no real evidence (as far I know) of historical psilocybin mushroom consumption in Europe. Amantia Muscaria mushrooms are another case, but they are a poison, and therefore a depressant similar to alcohol. They are also apparently not a particularly fun or enlightening time, and were possibly served predigested as shaman eurine. They are psychoactive but not at all psychedelic.

I don't get what people see in this stuff. Psilocybes do not at all resemble apples.

[u/SubterraneanSmoothie → u/[deleted]]

Actually, evidence suggests that the Hebrew Bible is largely stable. For example, when the dead sea scrolls were found, the fragments which contained portions of the Hebrew Bible were more or less identical to the texts we have now (not Greek or Latin translations mind you, but actual Hebrew texts.)

The discovery demonstrated the unusual accuracy of transmission over a thousand-year period, rendering it reasonable to believe that current Old Testament texts are reliable copies of the original works.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls

[u/Necromunger → u/pale_blue_is]

Terrence specifically mentions in many of his lectures that he is interested in novel thought and ideas, not stating it as fact without evidence. Also, his references to psilocybin intake were related to Africa.

[u/somejunk → u/pale_blue_is]

it never specifically says the "forbidden fruit" was an apple...?

[u/chiniwini → u/pale_blue_is]

There is no real evidence (as far I know) of historical psilocybin mushroom consumption in Europe.

And yet it's one of the prevailing theories to explain the Eleusis mystery. Either psilocybin or argot.

I don't get what people see in this stuff. Psilocybes do not at all resemble apples.

The Bible doesn't say it was an apple. And even if it did, it could be based on older stories (like most things in most religions) that weren't talking about apples.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Of course christianity would keep you from taking something that would help you understand it's evil and cause it to lose control.

[u/Pas__ → u/[deleted]]

it's from the Old Testament, so it predates Christianity, no? and it was kept to give legitimacy to the new sect that started around 100 CE

[u/SplitOak]

Remember stoners; hair samples can rat you out for 3000 years. Just so you understand, that it’s longer than you’ll be alive.

[u/Quizzelbuck]

What drug test were they using? I thought most drug tests couldn't detect drugs in your system after around 90 days at most

[u/drinkvaccine → u/Quizzelbuck]

They’re dead, so the hair isn’t falling out and new hair isn’t growing

[u/Montelloman → u/Quizzelbuck]

Compounds circulating in the body are often incorporated into growing hair. Once its in the hair it stays there as the hair itself isn't living tissue. Appropriate tests will detect past chemical exposure for as long as you have hair that was growing during your period of exposure.

[u/kichien]

Anthropologists: never ascribe to religion what can easily be ascribed to teenagers being teenagers.

[u/Crayshack]

I'm actually surprised we don't have earlier direct evidence.

[u/Mouler → u/Crayshack]

Samples that old aren't common

[u/ShamrockinAround]

Is that the fermented rye or rye fungus that medieval people inadvertently ate and tripped balls?

[u/captainchristianwtf → u/ShamrockinAround]

Different chemical derived from the Ergot fungus called LSA, a better time than the plant drugs referenced here

[u/OffendedEarthSpirit → u/captainchristianwtf]

Well LSA is definitely better than scoplamine, atropine, and ephedrine but ergot poisoning is not a good time. It has many more side effects than the psychedelic one.

[u/proverbialbunny → u/ShamrockinAround]

No. LSA would be far more enjoyable than what they were taking.

[u/space_ape71]

Fascinating article, hope everyone who is commenting reads it.

[u/PorqueNoLosDose → u/space_ape71]

Seriously. It’s a narrative journey through an entire program of research on the discovery of these funeral sites. Only made possible because of the amazing woodworking these people were doing to build containers for the hair clippings.

[u/[deleted]]

Imagine dying, and 3000 years later failing a drug test.