Archaeological Evidence for the Tradition of Psychoactive Plant Use in the Old World Author(s): M. D. Merlin Source: Economic Botany, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 295-323 Published by: Springer on behalf of New York Botanical Garden Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4256701 . Accessed: 23/08/2013 23:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. New York Botanical Garden Press and Springer are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic Botany. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 71.172.224.159 on Fri, 23 Aug 2013 23:01:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE TRADITION OF PSYCHOACTIVE PLANT USE IN THE OLD WORLD M. D. MERLIN UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I AT MANOA, HONOLULU, HI 96822 We live in an age when a divine vision is terialshave been predominantlydictated by spir- dismissed as an hallucination,and desire to ex- itual and/ormedicinal requirements. On the oth- perience a direct communicationwith god is of- er hand, contemporary,modem use in various ten interpretedas a sign of mental illness. Nev- societies, especially in those areas affected by ertheless, some scholarsand scientists assertthat Western Civilization, is often inspired by per- such visions and communicationsare fundamen- sonal "recreational"desires to experience eu- tally derived from an ancient and ongoing cul- phoria,and frequentlyis impelled by peer group tural tradition. The hypothesis presented here pressure. suggests that humans have a very ancient tra- An early relationship between humans and dition involving the use of mind-alteringexpe- psychoactive plants, often within a highly ritu- riences to produce profound,more or less spir- alized, ceremonial context has been suggested itual and culturalunderstanding. by a numberof authors(Allegro 1970; Emboden A cross-culturalsurvey of "relevant ethno- 1979; Furst 1972; Goodman et al. 1995; La graphicliterature" involving 488 societies in the Barre 1970, 1972, 1980; Schultes et al. 2002; 1970s indicated that 90% (437) of these groups Sherratt 1991, 1995b; Wasson 1968; Wilbert "institutionalized,culturally patterned forms an 1972; Wohlberg 1990). A number of these au- altered state of consciousness." The highest thors believe this kind of use of consciousness- rates (97%) were among the societies of "ab- alteringplants providedthe inspirationfor initial original North America" and the lowest (80%) humanreligious experiences,even perhapsthree in the "Circum-Mediteffaneanregion," which of the world's largest religions, Hinduism(Was- includes "North Africa, the Near East, and son 1968), Judaism(Dure 2001; Merkur2000), southernand westernEurope as well as overseas and Christianity (Allegro 1970; Ruck et al. Europeans" (Bourguignon 1973). A large per- 2001). Althoughthis hypothesisand some of the centage of these altered states are produced specific case studies (e.g., Allegro 1970) have throughconsumption of psychoactivedrug plant been widely dismissed as erroneous,others con- substances, supporting the idea that ".... the tinue to call attentionto the importanceof psy- ubiquity of mind-alteringagents in traditional choactive drug plant use by humans and the or- societies cannot be doubted-just as the moods igin of spiritualconcepts (e.g., Smith 2000, also of industrial societies are set by a balance of see Rudgley 1994, 1998, and Roberts2001). For caffeine, nicotine and alcohol, among many oth- example, according to some classical scholars, ers" (Sherratt1995a; Fig. 1). Christianityevolved within the milieu of Judaic Traditionally,the use of the great majorityof and Hellenistic healing cults, magic, and the mind-alteringdrug plants has been strongly as- Mystery initiations:"All four of these inevitably sociated with ritual and/orreligious activity; in- imply a sacred ethnopharmacology,with tradi- deed, ritualized consumption in various forms, tions going back to earlier ages of the ancient may be unequivocally religious, "as in the world" (see Ruck et al. 2001). ChristianEucharist or the complex wine-offer- This relationship with mind-alteringorgan- ings to the ancestorsin the elaboratebronze ves- isms is very old. It may have even originated sels of Shang and Zhou dynast China" (Sherratt before the evolution of our own genus, but more 1995b). Customary, or pre-industrial,motiva- probably within the temporal span of our own tions for ingestion of psychoactive organic ma- species well back into the Pleistocene. Economic Botany 57(3) pp. 295-323. 2003 ? 2003 by The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.A. This content downloaded from 71.172.224.159 on Fri, 23 Aug 2013 23:01:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 296 ECONOMIC BOTANY [VOL. 57 pre-industrialcontexts, have been "culturally programmed"to find plants (or fungi) that allow them to communicatewith the ancestors(or their spirit world). He suggested that this tradition goes back into the Paleolithic Era, long before the invention of agriculturewhen people were all hunters and gatherers.According to his the- sis, as bands of humans spreadout into new re- gions, including new ecological situations,they carried with them a culturally inspired motiva- tion to find and use species of plants or fungi that would allow them to transcendtheir "nor- mal" consciousness and enable them to com- municate with their ancestors or gods-in es- sence, their spirit world. The archaeologicaland paleobotanicalrecords offer evidence for these assertions,albeit some- what fragmentarynow. However, with the pow- erful tools of modem science and human imag- ination, our understandingof our deep-rooted desire to experience ecstasy in the original sense of the word (to break the mind free from the body and communicatewith the "gods" or the ancestors)will become clear with time. This re- view, utilizing archaeology and paleobotany, with its varying time depths in differentregions, documents the antiquity of a very widespread Fig. 1. Semi-wild opium poppy, Papaver somnifer- Urn. tradition of human association with psychoac- tive species of plants and fungi in the Old World, particularlyEurasia. In a 1970 journal article in Economic Botany In modem societies, psychoactive materials (24: 73-80), the ethnobotanist Richard Evans are used in a variety of ways. These include re- Schultes asked the anthropologist Weston La ligious, medical, and secular applications,which Barre a question concerning the known distri- in ancient times may or may not have been bution of traditionalpsychoactive drug plant use viewed as separate.For example, in the case of in the Old and New Worlds. Schultes wanted to Neolithic Europe, Sherratt (1991) argued that know why there are so few known psychoactive psychoactive ("narcotic") substanceswere con- drug plants associated with traditionalcultural sumed in a ritualisticcontext: "Such 'religious' use in the Old World. He pointed out that al- uses would no doubt have included 'medicinal' though there is much more ecological diversity uses as well, since it would be artificialto sep- and a much longer history of human occupation arate physical healing from ritual observance." in the Old World, the New World has many However, Sherratt(1995b) also suggested "that more of these known culturally-associated evidence for the employmentof substancessuch "plants of the gods." as opium or cannabisat varioustimes in the past La Barre argued that there must have been should not immediately be interpretedas an in- numerous other species that were used in the dication either of profoundritual significanceor Old Worldfor such purposes,but the rise of civ- of widespreademployment for largely hedonis- ilization, and in particularmonotheism eliminat- tic purposes:they may simply belong to the ma- ed most of these traditionsin the Old World(and terial medica." Under most conditions, in non- in those areas of the New World, where Euro- industrial societies, psychoactive substances pean religious influence has affected the pre- were often, if not always used in ritualistic,re- contact uses of such species). More fundamen- ligious contexts. tally, La Barre argued that humans, at least in Mind-altering plant species, including the This content downloaded from 71.172.224.159 on Fri, 23 Aug 2013 23:01:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 2003] MERLIN:PSYCHOACTIVE PLANT USE IN THE OLD WORLD 297 ones discussed below, can producea variableal- tered state of consciousness dependingupon the quality and quantity of the psychoactive chem- icals ingested, as well as the psychological set of the user and the social-environmentalsetting in which the substance is consumed (Julien 2001). METHODOLOGY Data used to support the hypothetical,wide- spread,ancient use of psychoactivedrug species has been extractedfrom the literatureof various disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology, ethnobotany, and palynology. Dating of evi- dence varies in techniqueand relativereliability. Most of the evidence has been dated using the radiocarbonmethod; some chronological docu- mentationhas relied on reference to