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Traces of Five Psychoactive Drugs Found in Thousand-Year-Old South American Ritual Kit

posted by martyb on Friday May 10 2019, @08:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the why-booze-when-you-can-bong? dept.

takyon writes:

Traces of five drugs found on 1000-year-old South American ritual kit

A 1000-year-old collection of drug paraphernalia found in a rock shelter in Bolivia features traces of five psychoactive chemicals, including cocaine and components of ayahuasca. This is the largest number of psychoactive compounds detected in a single archaeological find in South America, the researchers say. The plants they come from aren't native to the highland area where they were found, so they may have been brought there by trading networks or travelling shamans.

[...] Radiocarbon dating puts the date of the bag at AD 905 to 1170, roughly coinciding with the collapse of the Tiwanaku state, a once-powerful Andean civilisation that endured for around five centuries. Drugs are thought to have played an important role in Tiwanaku culture, possibly in healing ceremonies and religious rituals believed to enable contact with the dead.

Melanie Miller at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and her colleagues used mass spectrometry to analyse samples from the pouch and plant stems. They detected five psychoactive compounds: cocaine, benzoylecgonine (BZE), bufotenine, harmine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT).

Also at Berkeley News, Science Magazine, National Geographic, and ScienceAlert.

Chemical evidence for the use of multiple psychotropic plants in a 1,000-year-old ritual bundle from South America (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1902174116) (DX)

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Friday May 10 2019, @09:55PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Friday May 10 2019, @09:55PM (#842081) Journal

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca [wikipedia.org]

    Basically a brewed South American drug mix associated with shamans. It's all the rage right now with the hip crowd. It contains a variety of substances (differing from brew to brew), but typically contains DMT [wikipedia.org]. Unlike the DMT "businessman's trip", the effects can last for hours and likely include some vomiting.

    The psychedelic effects of ayahuasca include visual and auditory stimulation, the mixing of sensory modalities, and psychological introspection that may lead to great elation, fear, or illumination. Its purgative properties are important (known as la purga or "the purge"). The intense vomiting and occasional diarrhea it induces can clear the body of worms and other tropical parasites, and harmala alkaloids themselves have been shown to be anthelmintic. Thus, this action is twofold; a direct action on the parasites by these harmala alkaloids (particularly harmine in ayahuasca) works to kill the parasites, and parasites are expelled through the increased intestinal motility caused by these alkaloids.

    [...] The shamans lead the ceremonial consumption of the ayahuasca beverage, in a rite that typically takes place over the entire night. During the ceremony, the effect of the drink lasts for hours. Prior to the ceremony, participant are instructed to abstain from spicy foods, red meat and sex. The ceremony is usually accompanied with purging which include vomiting and diarrhea, which is believed to release built up emotions and negative energy.

    Scientists Prolong Length of DMT Trips [soylentnews.org]
    Amazonian Psychedelic May Ease Severe Depression, New Study Shows [soylentnews.org]

    and a bonus: "The new ayahuasca is kambo" [soylentnews.org]

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  • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Friday May 10 2019, @10:12PM (1 child)

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 10 2019, @10:12PM (#842096) Journal

    It's all the rage right now with the hip crowd.

    Well that explains me never having heard of it at least :-p

    Prior to the ceremony, participant are instructed to abstain from spicy foods, red meat and sex.

    Three strikes in a row

    The ceremony is usually accompanied with purging which include vomiting and diarrhea

    Aaaand two bonus strikes. I think we're done here.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @10:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @10:41PM (#842104)

      >> Prior to the ceremony, participant are instructed to abstain from spicy foods, red meat and sex.
      > Three strikes in a row
      Everything I've read is more about avoiding foods with serotonin precursors (tryptophan, etc) long enough to clear it out before taking the MAOI-containing brew, to avoid serotonin syndrome. If there's sound rationale for the other things, it's still just some temporary prep phase leading up to the trip, maybe a day to a week of it, I think. It's not about living that way.

      >> The ceremony is usually accompanied with purging which include vomiting and diarrhea
      > Aaaand two bonus strikes. I think we're done here.
      Oh, don't worry, those are nothing in the face of the eternity in an utterly alien reality, anyway ;)