Long Before Amsterdam’s Coffee Shops, There Were Hallucinogenic Seeds

Black henbane has been discovered at archaeological websites within the Netherlands that date again to the Neolithic Period. But as a result of it’s a wild plant that readily grows within the disturbed soil close to settlements, consultants have been unable to determine whether or not it was utilized by individuals or was simply a part of the surroundings.

In 2008, for instance, archaeologists discovered a Roman-Era ceramic beaker in Voorburg that had been crammed with dust over time. In the dust, they discovered one black henbane seed together with 26 hazelnuts and a single grain every of corn, barley, wheat and varied different seeds. “The overall composition of the seeds seemed to point at the intentional use of black henbane as some kind of medicine or hallucinogen,” mentioned Jasper de Bruin, the curator of the “Netherlands in Roman Times” assortment on the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, who was not concerned within the new analysis.

However, in response to Laura Kooistra, a retired archaeobotanist and a co-author on the most recent findings, a single seed embedded in soil doesn’t present the diploma of certainty wanted to attract conclusions about whether or not black henbane was utilized by individuals. “One swallow does not make a summer,” she mentioned.

The bone container, alternatively, does present that degree of smoking-gun proof. “It shows, for the first time in Western Europe, the deliberate collection of seeds of the poisonous black henbane during the Roman Period,” mentioned Otto Brinkkemper, an archaeobotanist on the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, who was not concerned within the analysis.

Experts can solely guess, although, what goal the seeds might need served.

The authors of the brand new examine check with black henbane as a medicinal plant, mentioned Astrid Van Oyen, an archaeologist at Radboud University in Nijmegen, who was not concerned within the analysis. But it is usually doable that black henbane was utilized by individuals “actively seeking psychoactive experiences” for non secular, therapeutic or leisure functions, she mentioned.

“This find shows us a rare glimpse of a possible way in which people navigated and mediated the anxieties, stresses, hopes and aspirations of daily life,” Dr. Van Oyen mentioned. “Whoever collected all these seeds in this makeshift container did this deliberately and skillfully — they knew what they were doing.”