Europeans were already using psychedelic drugs in the Bronze Age

Although archaeologists and historians have long suspected the inhabitants of Bronze Age Europe of having used psychoactive substances, they now have irrefutable scientific proof.

And all thanks to several tiny strands of human hair found impeccably preserved. in a 3,000-year-old burial site in Spain. The researchers discovered that the hair contained traces of three substances alkaloids known to induce altered states of consciousness.

«It's incredible,» said Rafael Mico, professor of archaeological prehistory at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. «This is the first direct evidence in Europe of [psychedelic drug] use.»

Mico is co-author of a new study describing these findings, which was published this month in the journal Scientific Reports.

The hair sample in which various psychedelics were identified

A new analysis of a decades-old discovery

According to Mico, this is a discovery that has been decades in the making. It all began in the mid-90s, with the discovery of a cave on Menorca, an island off the east coast of Spain. The cave, called Es Càrritx, contained the remains of around 200 people from the Bronze Age.

According to Mico, some of these people had red-dyed hair. Strands of hair were found inside decorated tubular boxes made of wood and twigs. The archaeological finds inside the cave were exceptionally well preserved, as the cave opening had long since been closed off by collapsed rubble.

«It's a miracle to have found these strands of hair thanks to very, very special conditions,» said Mico.

Initial analyses of these hair samples didn't tell the researchers much, according to Mico. But over time, the science improved, so they tried again. This time, they found evidence of the existence of three compounds that can be produced from native plants: the hallucinogens atropine and scopolamine, and the stimulant ephedrine.

Plants such as mandrake (Mandragora autumnalis), henbane (Hyoscyamus albus), Datura and Ephedra are likely sources of these various substances.

All three compounds are used in modern medicine for a wide variety of purposes, including atropine to combat nerve agent poisoning, scopolamine to treat motion sickness and ephedrine to lower blood pressure during anesthesia.

The analysis suggests that the person to whom the hair belonged had been consuming these psychoactive compounds regularly for at least a year prior to his death.

It's not the first time we've discovered that the Bronze Age peoples of what is now Europe consumed drugs, as did the inhabitants of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. But earlier research was more circumstantial - for example, archaeological finds of what appeared to be smoking pipes.

«That's why it's important to preserve the archaeological remains in good condition so that they can be analyzed in the future,» said Mico.

One of the rooms in the psychedelic cave

Why did they take drugs?

It's impossible to know for sure how these ancient cultures used mind-altering drugs, but Mico asserts that the reason must have been very different from the way we consume psychedelics today.

«In our society, we take drugs probably to escape, to forget disgusting or embarrassing situations. But we think that in the past, in Menorca, drugs were only used by certain individuals to fulfill this specific social role (....),» he said. «Our hypothesis is that these people were shamans of sorts.»

These shamans, according to Mico, would have acted as a kind of 'intermediary» between real, everyday life and »another perception, another state of mind«.