CORTEZ, COLORADO—A new study of a sample of the more than 300 quids, or yucca fiber-wrapped bundles, excavated from a trash midden in Arizona’s Antelope Cave reveals that most of them contained wild tobacco. “As wads of fibers, perhaps they haven’t produced as much excitement as they could have, before we realized ancient folks were actually putting substances inside them,” Karen Adams of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center told Western Digs. It had been thought that Ancestral Puebloans used the quids some 1,200 years ago as “tea bags,” dye bundles, wash pads, and even something to suck on at times when food was scarce. A further DNA study showed that the contents of six of the quids contained a type of tobacco that still grows near the cave. “We believe that yucca-leaf quids containing wild tobacco were sucked and/or chewed primarily for pleasure and the stimulant effect they brought to the individuals who inhabited Antelope Cave over hundreds of years,” the team wrote in the Journal of Field Archaeology. To read about the discovery of an ancient watering system in Arizona, go to "Early Irrigators - Tucson, Arizona."
