A lock of hair from almost 3,000 years ago has sufficed to achieve the first direct evidence of the use in Europe of drugs. The hair was part of a funeral ritual and was hidden in the cave of It is Càrritx (Menorca) at a time when the Bronze Age society was changing.
Atropine, scopolamine and ephedrine from plants are hallucinogenic substances that a group of Spanish and Chilean researchers detected in that lock.
The study, led by Elisa Guerra from the University of Valladolid and published today by Scientific Reports, points out that these drugs could have been used as part of ritual ceremonies.
The find
Discovered in 1995, Es Càrritx (western Menorca) housed a chamber used as a burial space in which small cylindrical wooden containers with hairs dating back about 2,900 years were found.
The research raises the oldest direct evidence of drug use in Europein the late Bronze Age, explains to EFE one of the signatories of the study Cristina Rihuete, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
In Europe there were indirect clues such as the detection of opium alkaloids in containers or remains of narcotic plants in ritual contexts. The oldest direct evidence in the world is about 3,000 years old in Chile.
The study used only a few strands of those available, some as long as 13 centimeters. Finding preserved hair from that time in the western Mediterranean is “absolutely extraordinary,” he notes.
An analysis with ultra high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectroscopy detected the presence of atropine, scopolamine and ephedrine, alkaloids that remain fixed in the hair, and that can respond to the consumption of plants such as mandrake, henbane or Jimson weed, the researcher points out.
Atropine and scopolamine occur naturally in the nightshade family and can cause delusions and hallucinations; ephedrine is a stimulant derived from certain species of shrubs and pine trees.
The team does not believe that these substances were used to relieve pain, although “there is a fine line as to how much something is for medicinal, magical or divinatory use“, highlights Rihuete.
The presence of scopolamine and atropine together are substances that induce sedationbut its manipulation is very risky, due to its high toxicity, which leads, Rihuete indicates, to think more about the consumption of hallucinogens than therapeutic purposes.
Hair growth leaves a record of certain substances and “the surprise is that it was possible to demonstrate that consumption occurred for at least a year”, but there is no indication of how it was taken.
The cave of Es Cárritx also tells the story of the settlers in the Late Bronze Age in Menorca, societies, “very interesting”, densely populatedwho knew how to live peacefully and in which grazing had an important weight, says the researcher.
In one of its chambers celebrated a funeral ritual in which the hair was dyed red, locks were combed and cut to put them in cylindrical wooden tubes with lids. Previous research suggests that some 210 individuals were buried, but only a few were subjected to the practice.
“It is likely,” he estimates, “that were certain people from the final chronology of the necropolis who perhaps had those shamanic divination attributes to which drug intake is linked”.
Six of those tubes were hidden in a excavated and sealed pit in a remote area of the cave -which helped to preserve the hair- along with horn containers, spatulas, vases and a wooden comb and some bronze objects.
Some pieces that, along with other materials from the cave, have begun to be exhibited at the Can Saura Municipal Museum in Ciutadella (Menorca), the researcher points out.
The box -as Rihuete calls them- chosen for the exam is made up of three olive wood tubes, made with the base of the tree trunk, to which they added a cover that, “to get it to fit, it is an extraordinary piece of joinery, taking into account the tools of the time.”
The researcher draws attention to cover-upsdecorated with concentric circles, already seen in other cultures, which may have an interpretation related to drugs.
These drawings have been interpreted “many times as a symbol of expansion of the pupils linked to the ingestion of substances that open the eye, open the inner knowledge”, he points out.
Related news
Create a hiding place to leave items related to that funeral ritual could be a way to preserve ancient traditions before the cultural changes that occurred about 2,800 years ago.
At that time, says Rihuete, there was a world that was ending, burials in the cave stopped and “the emphasis on cemeteries and centuries-old rituals ceases to give more importance to civil life. It is a brutal change from death to life.”