Nazca Child in Peru Drugged With Hallucinogens Before Ritual Sacrifice, Study Suggests

A child in Peru was slaughtered thousands of years ago as part of an old rite, with the head chopped at the neck and fashioned into a form of trophy. A recent investigation of a single hair extracted from the mummy's cranium suggests that the youngster drank a hallucinogenic cactus as a component of the ceremony before execution.

A new study analyzed 22 human bones connected with the ancient Nazca society; every one of these individual people lived during the pre-Hispanic era (3500 B.C. to A.D. 476) and then were found buried in Peru's southern coast, where they occurred unearthed on the Nazca Project, a long-running archeological and historical program that originated in 1982.

Despite scientists being unsure of the young victim's age and gender at mortality, they did note that the kid had consumed the San Pedro cactus (Echinopsis pachanoi), a prickly plant prized for its "strong hallucinogenic characteristics" and utilized by indigenous civilizations in traditional therapies and ceremonies.

According to research lead author Dagmara Socha, a Ph.D., scholar in the Center for Andean Studies at the University of Warsaw in Poland, the trophy head represents the first occurrence of San Pedro consumption by a person living on the southern Peruvian coast. It's also the first proof that some of the victims turned into trophy skulls were given amphetamine before they died, as she added.

Collecting Mummies and Tracking Psychedelics

Socha and her colleagues gathered individual hair samples from four monster heads, three among which belonged to adults, and 18 corpses of both adults and children for the study. Many of the deceased had taken some form of psychoactive or stimulant plant previous to their deaths, according to toxicological investigations.

Coca leaves, a source of the psychoactive chemical cocaine, and San Pedro cactus, which provides mescaline, a psychedelic drug, were among the goods consumed. Traces of Banisteriopsis caapi, the principal ingredient in ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic beverage containing harmine and harmaline, were also discovered by the researchers (two compounds used in modern antidepressants), as reported by Science Alert.

Socha remarked that it was incredibly fascinating to see how many individuals had exposure to [such plants]. They also sought to find the trade route of a few of these ancient plants, such as coca leaves, which were not farmed on Peru's southern shore and had to be carried there either from northeastern Peru or the Amazonian territory. As published in a report by Science Direct, drug usage dates back to 100 B.C. to A.D. 450, based on the study.

Other Ancient Remnants of Nazca Society

The scientists see that the plant shift started early, and they can really follow the trading routes. Socha explained that their research demonstrates that such plants were tremendously essential to many societies for medicinal or visionary purposes.

However, while evidence shows that these herbs were used as remedies and in ceremonies, experts are still unsure about how prevalent use was in Nazca society, according to Socha.

She emphasized that they don't know how frequently these [plants] were utilized. In the instance of San Pedro, it is not well conserved in an archaeological setting, and the coca leaves as well as Banisteriopsis caapi were never found to be grown in this location throughout that period.

Alongside the human remnants, Socha and her colleagues discovered fabrics, pottery pots, sewing equipment, and a chuspa - a sort of bag used for transporting coca plants - among the burial sites. The observations will be presented in the December 2022 publication of the Journal of Archeological Science.

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