#头条创作挑战赛 #
Hair samples from the head of ancient trophies found in Peru show that the victim consumed a psychoactive plant before death.
Two of the trophy heads, one for children and one for women, were part of an ancient ceremony held in what is now Peru
Thousands of years ago, some children in Peru were sacrificed as part of an ancient ritual, their heads cut out and made into a kind of trophy.
A new analysis of a hair plucked from the mummy's skull suggests that the child also ate a psychoactive cactus before execution as part of the ritual. The child's well-preserved head is one of 22 human remains in a new study related to the ancient Nazca society.
All of these people lived in pre-Hispanic times (3500 BC to 476 AD) and were buried off the southern coast of Peru, where they were excavated during the Nazca Project, a long-term archaeological program that began in 1982.
The report said the child ingested (Echinopsis pachanoi), a thorny plant that was used in traditional medicine by Native American civilizations for its "strong hallucinogenic properties" and during rituals.
These ingested items included coca leaves, known as a source of cocaine, a psychoactive substance, and San Pedro cactus, which contains the psychedelic drug mescarin. The researchers also detected traces of Banisteriopsis caapi, the main compound of ayahuasca water, a hallucinogenic drink containing harmaine and harmaline, two compounds used in modern antidepressants.
Researchers have found that the drug was used from 100 BC to 450 AD.
"We can see that this shift in factories starts very early, and we can actually track trade networks," one researcher said. "Our research shows that these plants are extremely important for the medicine or visual effects of different cultures. Since there are no written records of that period, our knowledge of Nazca and other nearby cultures comes from archaeological investigations. ”
"There is always some trade in this area, and these plants are traded up and down the coast of the Amazon (Peru)." One of the researchers said. "These plants have traditionally been used for ritual or medicinal purposes and are sometimes combined. For these cultures, there is always a specific purpose. ”
While there is evidence that these plants were used as medicines and rituals, scientists still have questions about how widespread their consumption was in the Nazca culture.