Yabba dabba doo!
Hair fragments believed to belong to Bronze Age shamans on the Spanish island of Menorca have been found to contain traces of psychoactive alkaloids, providing the primary evidence of hallucinogenic drug use in Europe 3,000 years ago.
Locks of hair were discovered in a secret compartment of a burial chamber in the Es Càrritx cave on a Mediterranean island. In response to a latest study, they tested positive for the alkaloids scopolamine and atropine – which may cause delirium – and ephedrine, a stimulant.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona archaeologist Elisa Guerra-Doce, who led the research, said IFL Science that previous excavations of the cave had revealed the stays of no less than 210 people buried there between 1400 BC and 800 BC.
Many bodies were found with hair dyed red, and a number of were buried with strands of coloured hair placed in tubes manufactured from bone or wood.
Nevertheless, researchers uncovered a previously unexplored space deep contained in the cave that contained an extra 10 tubes with strands of hair inside and other items from the period hidden behind a layer of clay.
In response to the study, scientists discovered the presence of mind-altering substances using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography and high-resolution mass spectroscopy.
“The interesting thing about this work is that it documents consumption [of hallucinogenic plants] for the primary time in human samples,” Guerra-Doce told IFL Science.
“Previously, plants with psychoactive properties have been documented in many archaeological contexts – including some much older than Es Càrritx – but all of this was indirect evidence,” she added.
Scopolamine and atropine will be found amongst plants, e.g Datura of the sort which have been related to sorcery and sorcery in the Western world for hundreds of years.
Guerra-Doce noted that the outcomes don’t necessarily mean these people were ingesting plants to get high, but “show that these people were actually consuming these drugs that come from different plants.”
In high doses, the alkaloids found in hair may cause “extreme mental confusion, strong and realistic hallucinations, disorientation… [and] out-of-body experiences and the sensation of changes in the skin, as if fur or feathers are growing out, in keeping with the study.
“Given the potential toxicity of alkaloids found in hair, their handling, use and applications represented highly specialized knowledge,” the researchers wrote.
This particular knowledge led scientists to consider that the hairs found belonged to ancient shamans.
The tubes in which the hairs were found were decorated with concentric circles – which the researchers consider may represent “inner vision” experienced by shamans after ingesting hallucinogenic plants.
Guerra-Doce told IFL Science researchers that the tubes can have been meticulously hidden as a result of some type of “social instability” among the many people of Menorca some 3,000 years ago.
“On this context, in the cave of Es Càrritx, some people unwilling to desert ancient traditions hid a set of formality objects belonging to some members of the community, possibly shamans, in the hope of restoring the old social order in the longer term,” the researchers wrote.