Drugs in prehistory (original) (raw)

Journal of Psychedelic Studies

Las drogas en la Prehistoria: Evidencias arqueológicas del consume de sustancias psicoactivas en Europa Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2006, 531 pp. including introduction, glossary, and bibliography Paperback ISBN: 84-7290-323-0 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 huntergather, 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 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited, a link to the CC License is provided, and changesif anyare indicated.