January 16, 2021
The research team, led by anthropology postdoctoral scholar Mario Zimmermann, believes the Mexican marigold was mixed with the tobacco to enhance the smoking experience. The discovery sheds light on ancient Maya drug use and provides a clearer understanding of their ceremonial and medicinal practices. Published in Scientific Reports, the study also opens the door to future investigations into both psychoactive and non-psychoactive plants that were smoked, chewed, or snuffed among the Maya and other pre-Columbian societies.
“While it has been established that tobacco was commonly used throughout the Americas before and after European contact, evidence of other plants used for medicinal or religious purposes has remained largely unexplored,” Zimmermann said. “The analysis methods developed in collaboration between the Department of Anthropology and the Institute of Biological Chemistry give us the ability to investigate drug use in the ancient world like never before.”
The work was made possible through NSF-funded research that led to a new metabolomics-based analysis method, capable of detecting thousands of plant compounds (metabolites) from residue collected from containers, pipes, bowls, and other archaeological artifacts.
These compounds can be used to identify which plants were consumed. Previously, identification of ancient plant residues relied on detecting a limited number of biomarkers, such as nicotine, anabasine, cotinine, and caffeine.
“The issue with this,” said David Gang, professor at WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry and co-author of the study, “is that while the presence of a biomarker like nicotine shows tobacco was smoked, it doesn’t tell you what else was consumed or stored in the artifact.”
“Our approach not only confirms the presence of the plant you’re interested in, but it also reveals what else was being used.”
Zimmermann helped unearth two of the ceremonial vessels used in the analysis during the spring of 2012. At the time, he was working on a dig directed by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History on the outskirts of Mérida, where a contractor had uncovered signs of a Maya archaeological site while clearing land for a new housing development.
Zimmermann and a team of archaeologists used GPS equipment to divide the area into a checkerboard-like grid. They then hacked through dense jungle in search of small mounds and other telltale signs of ancient buildings, often associated with the remains of important individuals such as shamans.
“When you find something really interesting like an intact container, it gives you a sense of joy,” Zimmermann said. “Normally, you’re lucky if you find a jade bead. There are literally tons of pottery sherds, but complete vessels are rare and offer a lot of exciting research potential.”
The WSU research team is currently negotiating with several institutions in Mexico to gain access to even older containers from the region, which they hope to analyze for plant residues.
They are also working on a separate project examining organic residues preserved in the dental plaque of ancient human remains.
“We are expanding frontiers in archaeological science so that we can better investigate the deep-time relationships people have had with a wide range of psychoactive plants—plants that were, and continue to be, consumed by humans all over the world,” said Shannon Tushingham, professor of Anthropology at WSU and co-author of the study.
“There are many ingenious ways in which people manage, use, manipulate, and prepare native plants and plant mixtures. Archaeologists are only beginning to scratch the surface of how ancient these practices truly are.”
No comments:
Post a Comment