A lock of hair from almost 3,000 years ago has been enough to achieve the first direct evidence of the use of drugs in Europe, within an investigation led by Elisa Guerra, from the University of Valladolid, and published this Thursday by the magazine Scientific Reports.
The hair was part of a funerary ritual and was hidden in the cave of Es Càrritx (Menorca) at a time when the Bronze Age society was changing.
Atropine, scopolamine and ephedrine from plants are the hallucinogenic substances that a group of Spanish and Chilean researchers detected in that lock.
The study points out that these drugs could have been used as part of ritual ceremonies.
Discovered in 1995, Es Càrritx (western Menorca) housed a chamber used as a burial space in which small cylindrical wooden containers with hairs dating back about 2,900 years were found.
The research raises the oldest direct evidence of drug use in Europe, in the late Bronze Age, explained to EFE one of the signatories of the study Cristina Rihuete, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
In Europe there were indirect indications such as the detection of opium alkaloids in containers or remains of narcotic plants in ritual contexts. The oldest direct evidence in the world is about 3,000 years old in Chile.
The study used only a few strands of those available, some as long as 13 centimeters. Finding preserved hair from that time in the western Mediterranean is "absolutely extraordinary," he notes.
An analysis with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectroscopy detected the presence of atropine, scopolamine and ephedrine, alkaloids that remain fixed in the hair, and that can respond to the consumption of plants such as mandrake, henbane or Jimson weed, the researcher points out.
Atropine and scopolamine occur naturally in the nightshade family and can cause delusions and hallucinations; ephedrine is a stimulant derived from certain species of shrubs and pine trees.
The team does not believe that these substances were used to relieve pain, although "there is a very fine line on the extent to which something is for medicinal, magical or divinatory use," Rihuete points out.
The presence of scopolamine and atropine together are substances that induce sedation, but their manipulation is very risky, due to their high toxicity, which leads, Rihuete indicates, to think more about the consumption of hallucinogens than therapeutic purposes.
Hair growth leaves a record of certain substances and "the surprise is that it was possible to demonstrate that consumption occurred for at least a year", but there is no indication of how it was taken.
The Es Cárritx cave also tells the story of the settlers in the Late Bronze Age in Menorca, "very interesting" societies, densely populated, who knew how to live peacefully and in which grazing had an important weight, the researcher reports.
In one of its chambers, a funeral ritual was held in which the hair was dyed red, combed and locks were cut to put them in cylindrical wooden tubes with lids. Previous research suggests that some 210 individuals were buried, but only a few were subjected to the practice.
"It is probable - he estimates - that they were certain people from the final chronology of the necropolis who perhaps had those shamanic divination attributes to which drug intake is linked."
Six of those tubes were hidden in a dug and sealed pit in a remote area of the cave -which helped to preserve the hair- along with horn containers, spatulas, vases and a wooden comb and some bronze objects.
Some pieces that, along with other materials from the cave, have begun to be exhibited at the Can Saura Municipal Museum in Ciutadella (Menorca), the researcher points out.
The small box -as Rihuete calls them- chosen for the exam is made up of three olive wood tubes, made from the base of the tree trunk, to which they added a lid that, "in order to make it fit, is a work of Extraordinary joinery, taking into account the tools of the time”.
The researcher draws attention to the covers, decorated with concentric circles, already seen in other cultures, which may have an interpretation related to drugs.
These drawings have been interpreted "many times as a symbol of pupil dilation linked to the ingestion of substances that open the eye, open inner knowledge," he points out.
Creating a cache to leave items related to that funeral ritual could be a way to preserve ancient traditions in the face of cultural changes that occurred some 2,800 years ago.
At that time, says Rihuete, there was a world that was ending, burials in the cave stopped and “the emphasis on cemeteries and centuries-old rituals ceased to give more importance to civil life. It is a brutal change from death to life.”
