Biomolecular Archaeology Reveals Ancient Origins of Indigenous Tobacco Smoking in North American Plateau
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Biomolecular archaeology reveals ancient origins of indigenous tobacco smoking in North American Plateau Shannon Tushinghama,1, Charles M. Snyderb,c, Korey J. Brownsteind, William J. Damitioa, and David R. Gangd aDepartment of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164; bUrban Studies and Community Health, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN 38112; cDepartment of Interprofessional Education, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN 38163; and dInstitute for Biological Chemistry, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164 Edited by Patricia L. Crown, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, and approved September 26, 2018 (received for review August 9, 2018) Chemical analysis of residues contained in the matrix of stone plants (8). The process of domestication began perhaps 6,000– smoking pipes reveal a substantial direct biomolecular record of 8,000 y ago in the Andes of South America (8, 9); genetic se- ancient tobacco (Nicotiana) smoking practices in the North American lection and modification by people ultimately produced species interior northwest (Plateau), in an area where tobacco was often such as Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana tabacum, which have portrayed as a Euro-American–introduced postcontact trade com- larger leaves and higher nicotine content than earlier wild vari- modity. Nicotine, a stimulant alkaloid and biomarker for tobacco, eties (8). Domesticated tobaccos spread into Mesoamerica and was identified via ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass the Caribbean and reached parts of what is now the southeastern – spectrometry in 8 of 12 analyzed pipes and pipe fragments from and southwestern United States by 2500 3500 cal BP (8, 10, 11). five sites in the Columbia River Basin, southeastern Washington However, they were absent in most of western North America, a vast area inhabited by hunter-gatherers where several different State. The specimens date from 1200 cal BP to historic times, con- “ ” “ ” firming the deep time continuity of intoxicant use and indigenous species of indigenous (often referred to as desert or wild ) tobaccos are found, including Nicotiana quadrivalvis, Nicotiana smoking practices in northwestern North America. The results indi- – cate that hunting and gathering communities in the region, including attenuata, and Nicotiana obtusifolia (12 14). By the time of Euro-American contact, many species of to- ancestral Nez Perce peoples, established a tobacco smoking complex bacco were used by indigenous communities throughout North of wild (indigenous) tobacco well before the main domesticated to- Nicotiana tabacum and South America, and tobacco was esteemed as a plant with bacco ( ) was introduced by contact-era fur traders great power, with special ritual, medicinal, and ceremonial sig- and settlers after the 1790s. This is the longest continuous biomolec- nificance. Rather than being the habitual recreational product it ular record of ancient tobacco smoking from a single region anywhere has become today, in traditional contexts tobacco is typically — in the world initially during an era of pithouse development, through used in limited quantities and by certain community members. the late precontact equestrian era, and into the historic period. This Although pipes are some of the most well-known artifacts as- contradicts some ethnohistorical data indicating that kinnikinnick, or sociated with tobacco, the plant was also smoked with perishable bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) was the primary precontact smoke materials (e.g., in cigars and reed “cigarettes”) and was ingested plant in the study area. Early use likely involved the management and by other means (e.g., chewing with lime, used as snuff, by enema) cultivation of indigenous tobaccos (Nicotiana quadrivalvis or Nicotiana (15–20). In 1492, Taino Arawak Indians introduced tobacco to attenuata), species that are today exceedingly rare in the region and Columbus in the Bahama Islands during his first encounter with seem to have been abandoned as smoke plants after the entry of trade tobacco. Significance biomolecular archaeology | tobacco | ancient plant use | North America | While tobacco is one of the most heavily consumed (and indigenous health abused) plant substances of the modern era, with profound global health consequences, its early use remains poorly un- espite being the leading cause of preventable death, nicotine derstood. Here we report a substantial direct biomolecular re- Ddependence is a worldwide epidemic, and tobacco continues cord of ancient tobacco smoking by hunter-gatherers of to be exploited by hundreds of millions of people around the interior northwestern North America. Nicotine-positive sam- world (1). While antitobacco campaigns and global health initia- ples demonstrate deep time continuity of indigenous tobacco tives have resulted in declines in tobacco use over the last 50 y, use smoking in a place where tobacco has been depicted as being rates remain stubbornly high in many developing nations and introduced by early Euro-American traders and explorers. The among certain populations, for example, American Indians, Na- spread of domesticated trade tobacco seems to have overtaken tive Alaskans, and Canadian First Nations peoples in North and obscured ancient indigenous tobacco practices. The in- America (2). Modern commercial tobacco has a wide range of formation—represented here by the longest continuous additives that serve to enhance physiological nicotine delivery and biomolecular record of tobacco use from a single region—in- addictiveness, mask environmental cigarette odors, and conceal forms programs designed to combat persistent commercial deleterious symptoms and illnesses associated with smoking (3). tobacco use rates among modern Tribal communities. Commercial tobacco is also advertised and packaged in such a way as to be attractive to consumers, for example, marketing cam- Author contributions: S.T., C.M.S., and D.R.G. designed research; S.T., C.M.S., K.J.B., – W.J.D., and D.R.G. performed research; S.T. and D.R.G. contributed new reagents/analytic paigns that feature American Indian imagery (4 6) (SI Appendix, tools; S.T., K.J.B., and D.R.G. analyzed data; and S.T., C.M.S., K.J.B., W.J.D., and D.R.G. Fig. S1). However, humanity’s dance with this powerful plant is wrote the paper. much more ancient than the 140 y since the first mass-marketed The authors declare no conflict of interest. cigarettes were produced (7). Indeed, the roots of nicotine ad- This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. diction stretch back many thousands of years, and scholars are still This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- just beginning to understand the deep time history of this ancient NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND). plant and its coevolutionary relationship with humans. 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: [email protected]. It has been hypothesized that tobacco (genus Nicotiana) was This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10. the first domesticate in the Americas, predating, and possibly 1073/pnas.1813796115/-/DCSupplemental. laying the foundation for, the farming of maize and other food Published online October 29, 2018. 11742–11747 | PNAS | November 13, 2018 | vol. 115 | no. 46 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1813796115 Downloaded by guest on October 2, 2021 the Americas (21), and later European explorers to the Americas commonly used as an offering in religious contexts as well as in daily were quick to adopt tobacco after recognizing its special prop- practice, for example, by casting or sprinkling unburned tobacco erties. By the 1500s, varieties of domesticated N. tabacum, se- leaves or stems or through burning (i.e., smudging) (20, 28, 33). lected over N. rustica for its “smoother” qualities, were farmed in Chemical identification techniques using gas chromatography- plantations in the British and American colonies throughout the mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-mass Caribbean and eastern North America. By the late 1600s, to- spectrometry (LC-MS) allow archaeologists to identify tobacco bacco was introduced to the Old World and soon became a use through the identification of the biomarker nicotine found in global trade commodity, a mass consumable that—along with residues extracted from ancient pipes, human hair, ceramics, and another stimulant of a different sort (sugar)—“revolutionized dental calculus (10–12, 34–38). At present, the earliest bi- the world and changed the course of history” (ref. 22, p. 1). molecular evidence of tobacco use/ancient smoking practices is Globalization also fundamentally changed the use of tobacco in areas where tobacco was farmed, in eastern North America by indigenous peoples, particularly in the west. In a fascinating and South America; much less is known about hunter-gatherers’ twist of fate, westward expanding Euro-Americans introduced tobacco use, especially in northwestern North America (13). To domesticated trade tobacco (likely N. tabacum farmed on east- date, the only direct biomolecular evidence of tobacco smoking ern plantations) to northern and western indigenous hunting- in western North America is from California (12, 13, 39). The gathering and fishing communities. Beginning as early as the only other known attempt to conduct residue analysis on pipes mid-1600s, explorers, missionaries, and traders soon discovered from the Plateau was conducted at the Keatley Creek site