Drugs in prehistory

Summary

Drawing on ethnographic analogies from the Americas, the book argues that prehistoric Europeans used psychoactive plants primarily as entheogens in ritual contexts, not for hedonism. These substances facilitated communication with divinities, healing, and divination, often involving penance, fasting, and night ceremonies. In complex societies, use was restricted to elites, reinforcing their prestige. The work reviews evidence from the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages in Europe, supported by a botanical catalogue of potential Old World psychoactive plants.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Doce’s book (translated title Drugs in Prehistory: Archaeological Evidence of the Use of Psychoactive Substances in Europe) has broader considerations going wellbeyond Europe. Doce notes that the contemporary societal debates about the use of psychoactive substances can be informed by the wide variety of botanical substances used as psychoactives across human history and prehistory. Doce notes the difficulty in determining whether substances are strictly psychedelic, as opposed to psychoactive, but also argues that the context easily leads to the conclusion that uses were entheogenic. Doce argues the importance of using these contemporary and recent historical sources of information as a model for interpreting the past in other regions. Consideration of ritual drug use in better-known areas provides an ethnographic analogy for interpreting the artifacts found in the European past and a model for the typical activities of the hunter– gather, agricultural, and high civilization societies. Chapter 1 addresses ethnographic evidence for psychoactive substance use in the Americas, whereas Chapter 2 addresses evidence from the Near and Middle East, as well as India and China. Chapter 3 reviews evidence for the use of psychoactives in the Classic world of Greece and Rome. This introductory material sets the stage for the next three chapters, which access evidence regarding psychoactive plant use in the Neolithic period, Bronze Age, and Iron age, respectively, constituting the heart of Doce’s book. These are followed by a short “Final Considerations” and botanical catalogue of potential psychoactive plants of the Old World. The ethnographic analogies from the Americas regarding psychoactive plant use show that they were viewed as a mechanism for enhancing connection with the spiritual realms and are hence entheogens. Diverse Amerindian traditions engaged in the entheogenic use of Lophophora williamsii (peyote), Anadenanthera and Virola snuffs, and Banisteriopsis brews known as ayahuasca, tobacco, and other substances. Doce provides a detailed ethnohistorical background to some of these principal cultural traditions of entheogen use in the Americas, exemplified in the Tiwanaku. The highly significant artifacts from the prehistoric cultures of the Americas attest to the central role of these practices in religion of these societies. The significant placement of snuff inhalation tools in graves attests to their centrality to conceptions of an afterlife. The abundant deposits of hollow bone tubes, tubes, spatulas, and other implements obtained from birds indicate that such ritual complexes involved standardized paraphernalia, which was also considered sacred. The predominant model of entheogenic consumption in foraging societies is associated with shamanic practices, where the shaman alone consumes the sacrament to enhance the healer’s spiritual force and divinatory capacity for purposes of healing. These shamanic entheogenic practices take place in a ritual context generally with the attendance of all of the community. This ritual context is used to establish communication with divinities and for a range of objectives from diagnoses for purposes of guiding treatment of disease; contact with the ancestors for advice; seeking advice regarding the future; acquiring diverse forms of information, especially about hunting and family members; and seeking to influence spiritual forces to enhance well-being. In preparation for these entheogenic ceremonies, Doce notes that there are a variety of common patterns. This includes a form of penance to produce a physical and/or spiritual preparation for the entheogenic encounter. They typically involve fasting, sleep-deprivation, self-torture, and sexual abstinence. This penance makes the individual worthy of spiritual favor revealed in the form of vision. A confession of transgressions prior to the ceremony is another significant feature, another form of purification for the spiritual encounter. These ceremonies are usually held at night, a factor potentiating the visionary experiences. Doce proposes that the more complex societies have entheogen use restricted to a more exclusive group. Here, we see the further limitation on the consumption of entheogens to the elite class, with such use reinforcing exclusivity and enhancing prestige of leaders. The centrality of these substances in spiritual life is manifested in their significant roles within the mythology of their culture. These accounts generally place these plant substances as the central means of access to the domains of the Gods – the plants of the Gods. Doce repeats the notion that premodern societies did not approach the use of these substances as a kind of hedonistic activity. On the contrary, the accounts frequently emphasized the unpleasant symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, and exemplified in the frequent notion that such plants provided purges as a healing mechanism. This negative profile extends to the visionary content, often conceptualized as a terrifying encounter with varied malevolent spiritual forces that might cause death.

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