Drug test positive! Oldest evidence of drug use discovered in Europe

A drug test on the Spanish holiday island of Menorca came back positive – with hair about 3,000 years old. Scientists had examined the remains of a cave burial site and found traces of a slew of mind-altering substances.

Substances include atropine and ephedrine, as well as scopolamine – known to be intoxicating. Apparently they were ingested through various plants, such as datura (which is still used as an intoxicant today) or the common mandrake, which were also used as a medicinal plant. The findings of the study have been published in the journal “Scientific Journal”.

It was already known that people consumed mind-altering substances as early as the Stone Age – finds in America and Eurasia prove this. But there is no evidence from Europe that plants were used to intoxicate. With the current discoveries “the first evidence of drug use in prehistoric Europe” has been found, study leader Elisa Guerra-Doce told the American broadcaster “CNN”. And possibly as part of rituals.

The Es Càrritx Cave, which houses the cemetery studied, was discovered in 1995. It served as a burial place for more than 200 adults and children between 1400 and 800 BC. Some of the dead have distinctive features: their hair was combed after burial, dyed red, cut and then kept in cases made of wood or antlers.

This procedure has already been observed in other cemeteries, where the vessels were kept close to the corpses. But in Es Càrritx, 10 of those containers were stored in a side room, the study authors reported. And it was precisely this hair that was analyzed for drugs by the researchers who worked with Guerra-Doce. They also found that the drug use took place almost a year before the death.

(t-online, wan/watson, yam)