A new study has produced evidence that ancient peoples living on a Mediterranean island off the coast Spain nearly 3,000 years ago were regularly consuming hallucinogenic drugs obtained from plants. Scientists examined hair samples removed from a Bronze Age burial site on the island of Menorca, and were quite excited to find that these strands of hair contained traces of psychoactive ingredients. This is the first confirmed proof that ancient inhabitants of Spain’s Balearic Island chain were using mind-altering substances, which may have been taken during religious ceremonies as a way to induced altered states of consciousness and perception.
As reported in the latest edition of Scientific Reports , a group of scientists from Spain, led by Valladolid University professor of archaeology and prehistory Elisa Guerra Doce, carefully analyzed strands of human hair removed from Menorca’s Es Càrritx cave, to gather data about their chemical makeup. The researchers used Ultra-High Performance Liquid Chromatography and High-Resolution Mass Spectroscopy to test for a variety of chemicals in the hair strands, and found psychoactive ingredients in three of them.
