Archaeologists in Peru have discovered a sealed room at a pre-Inca site, likely used to do rituals with drugs.
A report published on Monday said that a team of archaeologists was exploring the Chavín de Huántar in the central highlands of Peru. During the exploration, they came across a sealed chamber dating to the pre-Inca period, most likely to 500 BCE. Within the chamber, they found numerous carved bones, shell artifacts, as well as hollowed-out tubes of bones.
However, it was the substances found on these artifacts that truly surprised everyone. Testing revealed that the bones contained traces of organic compounds like tobacco and vilca. Tobacco, of course, has been used for thousands of years for its nicotine compound. Vilca (Anadenanthera colubrina) is known to contain DMT, a potent psychedelic, in its leaves and stems. Both plants were likely dried, toasted, and powdered. They would have been then inhaled via the hollowed bone tubes, which might have been made from the bones of the peregrine falcon. Archaeologist Daniel Contreras said: “The tubes would have been used—we think—as inhalers for taking the snuff through the nose.”
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But it would be wrong to assume that the pre-Incans in Peru were merely hippies getting high. Everything about the chamber suggests that it was a highly regulated ritual where psychedelics were used for spiritual purposes, not pleasure. It is also suggested that the ritual was emblematic of the hierarchical divide in that ancient society; only certain people were permitted within the chamber to perform the ritual.
