It has been suggested that between 200 BCE and 600 CE. Ceramics have also been found with representations of the cactus and archaeological evidence of the use of San Pedro in the Nazca, Cupisnique (1500 BCE) Chimú, Lambayeque (750-1350 CE) and Moche (100-750 CE) cultures has been discovered, along with the Chavín. These objects date from the year 1300 BCE. pachanoi is among the oldest of the different ancestral psychoactive plants.Īt the Chavín de Huantar site, representations of San Pedro cactus engraved in stone have been found, along with textiles and ceramics, which suggest that its use was already understood and practiced. Fossil remains of the cactus dating from 6800-6200 BCE have been found in these caves, including the presence of samples from different eras. For these cultures, there was always a specific purpose."īut while evidence suggests that these plants were consumed as medicines and for ceremonies, scientists still have questions about how widespread consumption was within the Nazca culture, Socha said.The earliest evidence of San Pedro use has been found in Peru, in the Guitarrero cave of the Callejón de Huaylas valley. I've never seen any reports of recreational use. "These plants were traditionally used for ceremonial or medicinal purposes, and sometimes combined. "There was always a little trade going on in this region, with plants being traded from the Amazon up and down the coast," Bussmann, who was not involved in the new study, told Live Science. Like Socha, he examined trade routes of different cultivated plants in this part of the world. Sixteen years prior to this study, Rainer Bussmann (opens in new tab), a professor in the Department of Ethnobiology at the Institute of Botany at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, and the head of botany at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart in Germany, published a study in the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (opens in new tab) examining medicinal plant usage by indigenous communities in northern Peru. The mummified remains of a child whose toxicology report showed the consumption of coca leaves. "It's also the first evidence that some of the victims who were made into trophy heads were given stimulants before they died." "The trophy head is the first case of the consumption of San Pedro by an individual living on the southern Peruvian coast," study lead author Dagmara Socha (opens in new tab), a doctoral candidate in the Center for Andean Studies at the University of Warsaw in Poland, told Live Science. While scientists are uncertain of the child victim's sex and age at death, they reported that the child had ingested San Pedro cactus ( Echinopsis pachanoi), a prickly plant taken for its "strong hallucinogenic properties" and used by indigenous civilizations of the Americas in traditional medicines and during rituals. 476) and were buried near the southern coast of Peru, where they were excavated during the Nazca Project, a long-running archaeological program that began in 1982. The child's preserved head was one of 22 human remains associated with the ancient Nazca society examined in a new study all of these individuals lived during the pre-Hispanic era (3500 B.C.
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