Ancient Andeans Used Hallucinogens to Build an Empire, New Evidence Shows
Mind-altering drugs played key role in rise of Andean civilization
Archaeologists have found direct chemical evidence that psychoactive drugs like vilca and San Pedro cactus were central to the rise of Andean civilization. At Chavín de Huántar, 3000-year-old bone tubes contained traces of DMT and bufotenine, confirming long-suspected ritual use. These drug-fueled ceremonies helped shaman-priests establish authority without military force, a model later adopted by the Tiahuanaco and Wari empires.
They harnessed the process of mental alteration to establish powerful levels of authority.
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> The work also benefits from recent research into the use of hallucinogens in treating mental illness, which has promoted broader acceptance of these substances. “There was long a feeling that drugs made you sick and addicted,” says José Capriles, an archaeologist at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) who excavates in Bolivia. “Today, there is a new openness,” he adds, which is freeing grant money and attracting graduate students.
I'm really happy to hear things like this. The potential benefits (and drawbacks, of course) been evident to lots of us psychonauts for a long time, and finally the sentiment seems to have turned enough so some money can actually get into the research to see if these things can help us today via treatments. A real joy to see after so many decades of the failed war on drugs that influenced policies across the globe.
- GMoromisato
I love Tom Standage’s book, A History of the World in Six Glasses. It talks about: beer (Mesopotamia), wine (Greece/Rome), spirits (Spanish colonization), tea (British colonization), coffee (world wars), and Coca-Cola (American empire).
It’s amazingly coherent.
- slowin
It's thought that a lot of the geometric designs in Indigenous pottery and architecture are directly influenced by hallucinogenic plants like datura.
There's a really great YouTube channel called Desert Lore and he covers this topic in depth in this episode. It was really fascinating:
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Given that many of our current-day subterranean environments are also covered in art and strewn with drug paraphernalia, can we really say that it played a key role in the rise of the civilization?
- baxtr
Didn’t mind-altering drugs like alcohol play a key role in the rise of any civilization?