Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America: In This Issue

Abstract

Archaeological studies have found evidence of ritual consumption of psychoactive plants among native cultures in South America. However, the evidence is fragmentary, preventing researchers from piecing together a coherent picture of hallucinogen use in ancient South America. Melanie Miller et al. (pp. 11207–11212) analyzed the chemical makeup of artifacts in a 1,000-year-old ritual bundle recovered from a rock shelter in southwestern Bolivia’s Lípez highlands. Unearthed from layers of rubble, the bundle contained a large leather bag with a pair of wooden snuffing tablets, a snuffing tube, a pair of llama-bone spatulas, a textile headband, fragments of dried plant stems held together by wool and fiber strings, and a pouch stitched from three fox snouts. Radiocarbon dating traced the bundle to 905–1170 CE. Using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, the authors analyzed the plant stems and fox-snout pouch and detected at least five psychoactive compounds—cocaine, benzoylecgonine, harmine, bufotenine, and dimethyltryptamine—whose source plants are foreign to the Lípez highlands. The presence of cocaine suggests that the pouch held coca leaves, and the bufotenine signature hints that vilca or cebil (Anadenanthera colubrina) seeds were carried in the pouch, ground on the snuffing tablets, and inhaled using the snuffing tube. The cooccurrence of harmine, found in yage (Banisteriopsis caapi), and dimethyltryptamine, found in vilca and chacruna (Psychotria viridis), suggests that multiple plants may have been used to make ayahuasca, which can induce hallucinogenic trips; the plants may have been consumed as a composite snuff or brewed into a potent beverage. The finding hints at ayahuasca consumption during shamanic rituals as old as 1,000 years. Despite the lack of human remains at the site, the findings raise the possibility that in preColumbian times shamans acquired psychoactive plants directly or through trading networks and used them in rituals to induce altered states of consciousness in hopes of communing with deities and deceased ancestors, according to the authors. — P.N.