It was a long held view that the ancient Chileans started inhaling hallucinogens from A.D. 400.
But new DNA testing on the hair of mummies has revealed people living in the San Pedro de Atacama region from 100 B.C. to A.D. 1450 had a nicotine habit, regardless of their social status or wealth.
University of Chile organic chemist Hermann Niemeyer, who led the study, said the findings refute the popular view that people living in this area moved from smoking tobacco in pipes to inhaling hallucinogens in snuffing trays from A.D. 400.
The practice of smoking and snuffing hallucinogens was deeply rooted in the culture and thinking of many pre-Hispanic societies.
‘The proposal one most often reads is that [the hallucinogens] were used mainly by shamans,’ Niemeyer told.
‘The shamans were supposed to not only cure things by directly using something that attacked the illness, but also by contacting spirits through ceremonies.’
The researchers, initially aiming to get a better understanding of hallucinogen use, analyzed hair samples of 56 mummies from the Late Formative to the Late Intermediate periods of SPA (100 B.C. to A.D. 1450).
Niemeyer said the mummies were in good condition, preserved naturally from the high temperatures, extreme dryness and high soil salinity in the Atacama Desert.
Buried alongside them were a a range of different objects such as jewelry, weapons, ceramic objects, raw metals, textiles, vases and various snuffing paraphernalia, including mortars, trays and tubes, which the researchers used to determine their social and wealth status.
The researchers found that traces of nicotine weren’t related to the presence of snuffing paraphernalia in the tombs, suggesting shamans, who are typically ᴀssociated with such objects, weren’t the only ones to consume the psychoactive alkaloids.
Moreover, nicotine-laced hair wasn’t related to the diversity of funerary objects or the presence of valuable gemstone necklaces.
The results will be published in the October issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.