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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)
(Score: 4, Informative) by martyb on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:38AM (2 children)
First off, this question is addressed in the FAQ [soylentnews.org]. I take it you have read that?
Secondly, being first to submit a story does not guarantee that your version of the story is the one that gets published.
Here is what you submitted [soylentnews.org] and here is what takyon submitted [soylentnews.org].
Takyon's submission, though it came a few minutes later, was much more complete.
It included the radiocarbon dating that was used to determine the date of the bag. Further, his submission identified all five of the substances that were found.
Beyond those points, he also included alternate sources for the casual reader to see other media's take on the story.
Still further, his submission contained a link to the actual journal article. This is the primary article that the other articles are based on.
Lastly, let me make this abundantly clear. On several occasions I have seen complaints from you about how a comment of yours was moderated, or how a story submission was not accepted, etc. But each time, you have failed to provide a link to the item in question. Heck, even a copy/paste of the item's title would have gone a long way. I have repeatedly had to do some searching to find the item in question... when you already had it to hand. I have previously provided clear instructions in reply to comments of yours on how to copy links and include them in a comment.
I have acted in good faith in these cases. I fail to see the same from you.
This very comment is another case in point.
If you cannot bother to provide a link to the item in question, then do not expect us to bother with anything in your comment.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday May 11 2019, @04:34AM (1 child)
I asked, why my Sub is still waiting. Otherwise known as, Pending. You "answered" something else I didn’t ask. You didn't answer that one.
But you wrote 4 Paragraphs to say, I didn't put the Link, you wanted the Link. Which, if you'd looked at my Sub, I assume you would remember it. Without needing to look again, without needing the Link. Because it wasn't long ago at all -- Friday morning. So I assume, you hadn't looked at mine. Until I asked what was going on. You didn’t say so. But, you put up the Takyon Sub about the same story. And according to you, mine is inferior. But, you didn’t reject it. And you didn’t "merge" it. I think if you’d looked at it, if it was bad, you could reject it. And if it was OK, you could merge it. But, you didn’t do either. So I asked.
And you said, look at FAQ. At, I’m guessing, "Why didn't you post my story?" 7 "answers" to that one. And, none of them apply. Especially because nobody "declined" (rejected).
So I’m left to guess, possibly a lot of my Subs don’t get looked at. Or possibly the Editors look at them, then they do their own "version" of the story. And go with that one -- no credit to Donald J. Trump. I'm not asking for a royalty. But possibly I'm asking too much!!
(Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday May 11 2019, @12:35PM
(emphasis added)
The subject of the comment you posted, which I quoted in my reply, and which was still referenced in the subject your reply was:
That is a question.
I answered it.
As for your pending story submission, that was an oversight on my part; thank you for bringing it to my attention. I will delete it now.
Wit is intellect, dancing.