A Collaborative Proposal for Identifying Psychoactive Drug Ingredients in Supposed Ritual Pottery and Other Implements from the Prehispanic Andes

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In recent years several studies have documented plant secondary metabolite containing residues in archaeological find material, extending the supposed utility of vessels and other implements to the ceremonial and religious-ritual domain. Inter alia cacao, coca and tobacco related compounds were identified with LC/MS/MS analytics in the nanogram scale. We suggest a collaborative research proposal to archaeologists and analytical chemists to search for organic use residues in such important vessel types like the stirrup spout bottle, double and single spouted bottles, which are Leitfossils in Peruvian archaeology, as well as similar containers of unknown primary functionality in the Andes from Columbia to Chile and Northwest Argentina. We suggest a validated search strategy for detecting intoxicating, hallucinogenic and other psychoactive compounds, which are ethnographically and ethnohistorically documented, though its physical containers and administrating devices are previously undiscovered.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32366