Prehistoric Cultures Used Psychedelics During Funerals

Supernatural, by Adam Scott MillerImage credit: "Supernatural", by Adam Scott Miller

Psychedelics may be illegal in most modern Western societies, but an archaeologist has concluded that these visionary substances have played an integral part in human history - and what's more, their role was initially a spiritual one, rather than being for pleasure. Elisa Guerra-Doce of the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain has found that plant drugs such as opium poppies and hallucinogenic mushrooms are directly connected with the sacred burial rituals of many pre-industrial societies, suggesting they were used in some way for access or communication with the spirit world:

Guerra-Doce systematically documented the cultural significance of consuming inebriating substances in these cultures. In the research, four different types of archaeological documents were examined: the macrofossil remains of the leaves, fruits or seeds of psychoactive plants; residues suggestive of alcoholic beverages; psychoactive alkaloids found in archaeological artifacts and skeletal remains from prehistoric times; and artistic depictions of mood-altering plant species and drinking scenes.


The details of the rituals are still unclear, but the hypothesis is that the substances were either used in the course of mortuary rites, to provide sustenance for the deceased in their journey into the afterlife, or as a kind of tribute to the underworld deities.She adds that the right to use such substances may have been highly regulated given that they were a means to connect with the spirit world, and therefore played a sacred role among prehistoric European societies.


Guerra-Doce's paper is titled "The Origins of Inebriation: Archaeological Evidence of the Consumption of Fermented Beverages and Drugs in Prehistoric Eurasia", and can be found in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.

For an entertaining and highly readable summary of psychedelic use in prehistoric times, see Paul Devereux's wonderful book The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia (available from Amazon US and Amazon UK), one of Daily Grail Publishing's most popular books.

Link: Alcohol and Drugs: Not Just for Modern Humans


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Strange_Stars_Near_Arcturus's picture
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15 December 2013
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26 weeks 8 hours

Sounds like more enabling mythology. I don't doubt people got together, got loaded, and held reverence for ritual; but I don't see it as any more interesting than the same thing going on in our culture today at a Kanye concert, or a Kurt Vile show. People like to worship. People like to get loaded. People like to imagine stuff. None of these things are particularly enlightening.

emlong's picture
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18 September 2007
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1 hour 18 min


Benjamin Franklin
"There was nothing really as glorious as a good beer shit - I mean after drinking twenty or twenty-five beers the night before. The odor of a beer shit like that spread all around and stayed for a good hour-and-a-half. It made you realize that you were really alive."
Charles Bukowski


James Thurber


Frank Sinatra

By the way, I quit drinking 26 years ago. Once when I told that to an inebriated wit at a party he replied something like, "That's impossible. No human can go longer than a few days without water."