Chemical evidence for the use of multiple psychotropic plants in a 1,000-year-old ritual bundle from South America.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America June 4, 2019 Melanie J Miller, Juan Albarracin-Jordan, Christine Moore et al. 171 citations
Chemical analysis of a ritual bundle from a Bolivian rock shelter, dated to about 1,000 C.E., detected traces of bufotenine, dimethyltryptamine, harmine, and cocaine (with its breakdown product benzoylecgonine). These compounds come from at least three different psychoactive plants, including the two key ingredients of ayahuasca—harmine and dimethyltryptamine—found together in a single artifact for the first time in this region. The plants originated from distant and ecologically distinct areas of South America, indicating that hallucinogenic substances were traded or transported over long distances. This suggests that pre-Columbian peoples possessed sophisticated botanical knowledge and incorporated such plants into shamanic rituals.