Tiwanaku Drug Paraphernalia Found in Bolivia

News September 4, 2014

(Antiquity Publications Ltd.)
SHARE:
Tiwanaku-Drug-Bundle
(Antiquity Publications Ltd.)

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA—Artifacts such as “snuffing tablets,” a wooden snuffing tube, and spatulas uncovered at the site of Cueva del Chileno, located near Lake Titicaca, suggest that the people of Tiwanaku used hallucinogens. “Snuffing tablets in the Andes were primarily used by ritual specialists, such as shamans. Psychotropic substances, once extracted from plants, were spread and mixed on the tablets. Inhalation tubes were then used to introduce the substances through the nose into the system,” Juan Albarracin-Jordan of the Fundación Bartolomé de Las Casas told Discovery News. Shamans who were under the influence acted as “mediators between the natural and the supernatural. They were also conflict brokers between the living and the dead,” Albarracin-Jordan explained. Cups used for drinking the alcoholic beverage known as chicha were also found, and although drug use declined with the Tiwanaku state around A.D. 1100, the drinking of the fermented corn beverage persisted. 

 

  • Features July/August 2014

    The Tomb of the Silver Hands

    Long-buried evidence of an Etruscan noble family

    Read Article
    (Marco Merola)
  • Features July/August 2014

    Revisiting the Gokstad

    More than a century after Norway's Gokstad ship burial was first excavated, scientists are examining the remains of the VIking chieftain buried inside and learning the truth about how he lived and died

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway)
  • Letter From Scotland July/August 2014

    Living on the Edge

    Were the residents of a Scottish hillside immoral squatters or hard-working farmers?

    Read Article
    (Jeff Oliver, University of Aberdeen)
  • Artifacts July/August 2014

    Neolithic Wand

    Read Article
    (Courtesy L.C. Tiera)