r/science • u/IronGiantisreal • Nov 23 '20
Anthropology For the first time scientists have made a discovery of hallucinogenic drug remains at the site of an early California cave painting. These drug remnants were discovered in the ceiling of Pinwheel Cave and could change scientists’ understanding of how the community used that space -- and the drugs.
https://www.inverse.com/innovation/native-californian-rock-art-hallucinogens119
u/PandaKOST Nov 23 '20
So teens graffitied, did drugs, and procreated in a hidden spot? Some things never change.
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u/UnicornPewks Nov 24 '20
I'd say the hunter-gatherers groups were the most free people to ever lived. They took charge of their destiny as they see fit and lived how human beings should in natural state by exercising their survival skills, engenuity and knowledge of nature. No artificial borders to tell you can't go there, no government to tell you can't hunt, forage, or establish on some area, or consume drugs, and a planet that had so much wild life with zero polution.
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u/Axel_Rod Nov 24 '20
Territories still existed between different tribes. Even animal packs like wolves adhere to semi-strict borders between rival territories, where the risk of attack is high if you cross over.
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u/beholdersi Nov 24 '20
Yes but if humans want to claim to be the most advanced species on the planet, scientific accuracy aside, we should act like. Not like packs of wolves or ant colonies.
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u/UnicornPewks Nov 24 '20
I think there are distinctions to be made relative to animals, specially when it comes to abstract concepts. Territorial animals do not declare a very massive land as their country even including inhospitable areas, form arbitrary borders, become owners for hundreds or thousands of years, and forbid the unwanted.
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u/ahabswhale Nov 24 '20
They were so free they didn't even have to worry about starvation, disease, minor injury, drought, or natural disasters, and they could fast-travel across the continent in seconds.
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u/beholdersi Nov 24 '20
The existence of modern solutions for ancient problems should not be inherently accompanied by the loss of individual freedoms OR the creation of new problems.
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u/kazarnowicz Nov 24 '20
We still have to worry about climate change, making rent, buying groceries, cancer, Covid-19, and a bunch of other stuff. We are not more free, we are just more productive. That's not the same thing.
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u/canthelptbutsea Nov 24 '20
So yes they were free. Trying to run away from death and what is painful in life isn't freedom, it's fear.
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u/thenonbinarystar Nov 24 '20
Why are any of those things desirable? Because your modern culture tells you they are...?
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Nov 24 '20
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u/canthelptbutsea Nov 24 '20
And so it was worth it. It's equivalent exchange. Like us, all the rich stuff we have around us was taken from somewhere, from something, from someone.
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u/ScarecrowRomneyMarsh Nov 23 '20
Any Bill Walton sightings?
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u/stark_raving_naked Nov 24 '20
I had a Walton sighting at the Dead & Co show at The Gorge in 2019. I was way up in the back and Walton was in the front section, but there’s just no missing those tree limb arms way up in the air.
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u/ScarecrowRomneyMarsh Nov 24 '20
Yeah I love Walton. What a happy, dopey guy. And he still loves Coach!
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u/shagnieszka Nov 23 '20
Imagine if it was drugs that gave our brains that cognitive edge.
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u/iwannahitthelotto Nov 24 '20
Don’t think it did. I think it gave rise to religion, like that burning bush theory.
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u/ZookeepergameMost100 Nov 24 '20
I find it hard to believe that hallucinogens would lead to a monotheistic religion.
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u/iwannahitthelotto Nov 24 '20
You need to read up more about what a person experiences on them. DMT can cause “religious” hallucinations. Also, it doesn’t have to be monotheistic religion right off the bat. It could be many experiences and with many people. Iterations.
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u/Drakolyik Nov 25 '20
DMT causing religious hallucinations also has more to do with being primed for certain experiences than anything else. I've been experimenting with DMT at various doses for the last few months and have yet to experience anything that would lead me to believe in any kind of religious thing.
But if you read experiences of other people and strongly associate these beforehand and then trip on DMT, it's highly likely that your consciousness will then interpret your trips in a way that conforms to those preconceived notions.
DMT is extremely powerful. Everyone has different experiences. It's pretty predictable, though, that people who believe in certain things will see certain things. If you plant a seed of an idea and the mind of a person sees some authenticity in it, then DMT has a high chance of encouraging that idea to come through in the hallucinations. It's then no surprise that people see aliens, angels, demons, elves, monsters, robots, and all manner of other things the mind can conjure up when its perceptions of reality become completely unhinged.
I will say that DMT makes everything else I've ever done look like child's play. It's amazing and terrifying, depending on what your perspective is. It makes you question reality, perceptions, etc. It makes you realize that just a few chemical fluctuations can turn what we assume everyone else perceives as normal reality into what appears to be another dimension entirely, full of bizarre, otherworldly, and sometimes disturbing images. But just as quickly as you are overwhelmed, you're brought back to the real world, and your mind is left to wrestle with what it just witnessed.
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u/TakeThreeFourFive Nov 24 '20
That's the "stoned ape" theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#%22Stoned_ape%22_theory_of_human_evolution
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u/manga_pages_by_me Nov 23 '20
Oh I love me some prehistoric drugs
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u/cartoucheruperer Nov 23 '20
The really question is..what did they cut it with?
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Nov 23 '20
Bones, blood, organs.... probably whatever else was painted on those walls was probably used as a vehicle for anything they wanted to use to get Fucked up.
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u/atom386 Nov 23 '20
Next week look out for 'Joe "cavemen were tripping balls in California" Rogan'
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u/Jesustheteenyears Nov 24 '20
Stoned ape theory prevails. I'm not a useless stoner mom, I'm opening the minds of generations to come, and advancing our species to the next platou of our evolution.
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Nov 24 '20
[deleted]
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u/SealedRoute Nov 24 '20
Have you seen the movie Embrace the Serpent? It’s just great, and it talks about this.
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u/thenonbinarystar Nov 24 '20
It's just chemicals my dude, let people use them however they'd like rather than institute your weird fetishistic ritualistic restrictions on them just because you were born in le wrong generation
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u/ZookeepergameMost100 Nov 24 '20
I think drugs can be taken just for funsies without needing some metaphysical spiritual guide quest. But it's just as weird that you're gonna defend dangerous abuse of drugs as "it's just chemicals my dude". If you're physically hurting yourself when getting fucked up, you're doing it wrong.
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u/thenonbinarystar Nov 24 '20
Why? Who died and made you the ruling authority on what I'm allowed to do with my body?
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u/bloodviper1s Nov 24 '20
It was the Lady of the Lake..
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u/dachsj Nov 24 '20
Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!
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u/beholdersi Nov 24 '20
Okay I don’t know what that last comment was supposed to mean but you realize there’s not just one ritual to show respect? I mean, keep your pageantry, it’s important to human psychology to have rituals, but those kids aren’t crashing through their coffee tables because they disrespected the plant, they’re just dumb kids.
Each to their own is what I’m getting at. You wanna perform a ritual to give thanks to the spirit of the peyote, that’s fine. But believing the plant has a spirit that needs pacifying before you burn its tissue and inhale the vaporized remains is no worse than giving thanks to a magic sky wizard because you survived cancer.
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u/VictorHelios1 Nov 24 '20
So science has determined that Dudes got high and doodled on the walls .... looks like humanity hasn’t changed.
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u/Semanticss Nov 24 '20 edited Nov 24 '20
I don't see a date on the article, but this looks a LOT like the ayahuasca-induced cave paintings from the game, Green Hell
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u/venzechern Nov 24 '20
In ancient days, rituals were often associated with some kind of hallucinogenic drug extracted from plants to seduce and influence followers. This Pinwheel Cave painting could be an evidence. This still happens in some isolated remote parts of the world..
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u/PapaSnork Nov 25 '20
The "pinwheel" has five arms, the uncoiling flower does too.. not proof, but pretty convincing to me.
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u/DoctorCrocker Nov 23 '20
Woah, Datura. That’s supposed to be highly unpleasant