Researchers detect alkaloid substances from plants in strands of hair dating back to the Bronze Age. Scientists believe this to be the oldest direct evidence of hallucinogenic drug use in Europe. Humans were already using hallucinogenic drugs in Spain some 3,000 years ago, revealed new research published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports on Thursday (06/04). A single lock of hair was enough to provide what is believed to be the first direct evidence of drug use in late Bronze Age Europe. A group of Spanish and Chilean researchers analyzed hair strands and detected alkaloid substances from plants. The study, led by Elisa Guerra, from the University of Valladolid, in Spain, points out that these drugs could have been used as part of ritual ceremonies. The hair was hidden in the cave of Es Càrritx on the Spanish island of Menorca. Discovered in 1995, the cave housed a chamber used as a burial space, where small cylindrical wooden containers with hairs dating back to around 2,900 years were found. The study looked at just a few of the available strands, some up to 13 centimeters long. Finding hair preserved from that time in the western Mediterranean is “extremely rare”, say the researchers. The substances found Chemical analyzes of the hair detected the presence of atropine, scopolamine and ephedrine, alkaloids that remain fixed in hair and that may correspond to the consumption of plants such as mandrake, henbane or weed, says the study. Atropine and scopolamine are found naturally in the nightshade family and can cause delusions and hallucinations. Ephedrine is a stimulant derived from certain species of shrubs and pine trees. The research team does not believe that these substances were used to relieve pain, although “there is a very fine line about the extent to which something is for medicinal, magical or divinatory use”, says one of the study’s authors, Cristina Rihuete, from Autonomous University of Barcelona, in an interview with the Efe news agency. Scopolamine and atropine together are substances that induce sedation, but handling them is very risky, due to their high toxicity – something that leads one to believe in consumption for hallucinogenic rather than therapeutic purposes, points out Rihuete. Hair growth also leaves a record of the substances, and “the surprise is that it was possible to demonstrate that consumption (of drugs) occurred for at least one year”, says the researcher. There are, however, no indications of how they were consumed. Who lived in the region The cave of Es Càrritx also tells the story of the inhabitants of Menorca during the late Bronze Age: “very interesting” societies, densely populated, who knew how to live peacefully and in which grazing was important, reports Rihuete . In one of its chambers, a funeral ritual was performed in which the hair was dyed red, combed and cut into locks, which were placed in cylindrical wooden tubes with lids. Previous research suggests that around 210 people were buried at the site, but only a few underwent this ritual. “It is likely that there were certain people from the final chronology of the necropolis who perhaps had those attributes of shamanic divination to which drug intake is linked”, says Rihuete. Six of these tubes were hidden in a pit dug and sealed in a remote area of the cave – which helped to preserve the hair – along with horn vessels, spatulas, vases and a wooden comb and some bronze objects. In Europe there was already indirect, but not direct, evidence of the use of hallucinogens at that time, such as the discovery of opium alkaloids in containers or remains of narcotic plants in ritual contexts. In the world, the oldest direct evidence is about 3,000 years old in Chile. ek (Efe, ots) 
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