Hallucinogens, alcohol and shifting leadership strategies in the ancient Peruvian Andes

Biwer, Matthew E.; Álvarez, Willy Yépez; Bautista, Stefanie; Jennings, Justin

doi:10.15184/aqy.2021.177

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 49 publications

(50 reference statements)

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“…Indeed, our revision of the northern Chile collections reveals the existence of much more instances than that provided in the literature review. Similarly, for the Sihuas valley in southern Peru, Biwer et al (2022) recently report remains of a long list of species from the Middle Horizon (600-1000 CE) site Quilcapampa, including achira and pacay seeds, which might have been locally grown.…”

Section: Cultivation Of Tropical Crops In the Atacama Desertmentioning

confidence: 98%

Pre-Columbian cultivation of vegetatively propagated and fruit tree tropical crops in the Atacama Desert

Capriles

García²,

Valenzuela³

et al. 2022

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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South America is a megadiverse continent that witnessed the domestication, translocation and cultivation of various plant species from seemingly contrasting ecosystems. It was the recipient and supplier of crops brought to and from Mesoamerica (such as maize and cacao, respectively), and Polynesia to where the key staple crop sweet potato was exported. Not every instance of the trans-ecological expansion of cultivated plants (both domesticated and wild), however, resulted in successful farming. Here, we review the transregional circulation and introduction of five food tropical crops originated in the tropical and humid valleys of the eastern Andes—achira, cassava, ahipa, sweet potato, and pacay—to the hyper-arid coastal valleys of the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, where they have been found in early archeological sites. By means of an evaluation of the contexts of their deposition and supported by direct radiocarbon dating, stable isotopes analyses, and starch grain analysis, we evaluate different hypotheses for explaining their introduction and adaptation to the hyper-arid soils of northern Chile, by societal groups that after the introduction of cultigens still retained a strong dependence on marine hunting, gathering and fishing ways of life based on wide variety of marine coast resources. Many of the studied plants were part of a broader package of introduced goods and technological devices and procedures, linked to food, therapeutic medicine, social and ritual purposes that transformed previous hunter-gatherer social, economic, and ideological institutions. Based on archeological data, we discuss some of the possible socio-ecological processes involved in the development of agricultural landscapes including the adoption of tropical crops originated several hundred kilometers away from the Atacama Desert during the Late Holocene.

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Section: Cultivation Of Tropical Crops In the Atacama Desertmentioning

confidence: 98%

Pre-Columbian cultivation of vegetatively propagated and fruit tree tropical crops in the Atacama Desert

Capriles

García²,

Valenzuela³

et al. 2022

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…Residents of the vernacular structures contributed resources and labour to events held within the lineage houses, where interior patios ensured sustained face-to-face interactions (Jennings et al in press; Nash 2010; Rosenfeld 2012; Sayre & Whitehead 2017). People dined with, and sometimes intentionally smashed, symbolically laden jars, cups and bowls, and drank hallucinogen-laced beer for a shared psychotropic experience (Biwer et al 2022; Cook & Glowacki 2003; Nishizawa 2011).…”

Section: Ayllus and Wari State-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ayllus, Ancestors and the (Un)Making of the Wari State

Jennings

Berquist²

2022

CAJ

Self Cite

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At the time of the Spanish invasion, central Andean society was organized around ayllus. These extensive social units, bound together by kinship, reciprocity, land claims, honoured ancestors and other criteria, are an example of the kin-based sodalities that have long been seen in political science as impediments to state development. Class should replace kin when large and complex polities like the Inca Empire form, and groups like the ayllu should fade away. This article seeks to re-evaluate the role played by kin-based sodalities in early state formation and expansion through a case study of the Wari State (ce 600–1000). We argue that the decades-long development of ayllus was a reaction to incipient urbanization, surging interregional interaction and the other challenges associated with Wari's rise. Ayllu development created a more heterarchical political structure that would endure some 200 years into the polity's existence. Elite efforts to consolidate power in the ninth century ce ultimately led to the polity's decline and highlight the need to develop more dynamic models of urbanization and state formation in the Andes and elsewhere.

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“…Seeking altered mental states is seemingly a human universal, historically and culturally (Slingerland 2021 ; Biwer et al 2022 ). The biological and behavioural precursors of such experiences are, however, unclear (MacKenna 1992 ; Pollan 2019 ), notably because it is challenging to confidently confirm if substance use was viable within the highly diversified ecological and cultural human paleobackdrop (Bergström et al 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Great apes reach momentary altered mental states by spinning

Lameira

Perlman

2023

Primates

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Among animals, humans stand out in their consummate propensity to self-induce altered states of mind. Archaeology, history and ethnography show these activities have taken place since the beginnings of civilization, yet their role in the emergence and evolution of the human mind itself remains debatable. The means through which modern humans actively alter their experience of self and reality frequently depend on psychoactive substances, but it is uncertain whether psychedelics or other drugs were part of the ecology or culture of pre-human ancestors. Moreover, (nonhuman) great apes in captivity are currently being retired from medical research, rendering comparative approaches thus far impracticable. Here, we circumvent this limitation by harnessing the breadth of publicly available YouTube data to show that apes engage in rope spinning during solitary play. When spinning, the apes achieved speeds sufficient to alter self-perception and situational awareness that were comparable to those tapped for transcendent experiences in humans (e.g. Sufi whirling), and the number of revolutions spun predicted behavioural evidence for dizziness. Thus, spinning serves as a self-sufficient means of changing body-mind responsiveness in hominids. A proclivity for such experiences is shared between humans and great apes, and provides an entry point for the comparative study of the mechanisms, functions, and adaptive value of altered states of mind in human evolution.

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Hallucinogens, alcohol and shifting leadership strategies in the ancient Peruvian Andes

Cited by 12 publications

References 49 publications

Pre-Columbian cultivation of vegetatively propagated and fruit tree tropical crops in the Atacama Desert

Pre-Columbian cultivation of vegetatively propagated and fruit tree tropical crops in the Atacama Desert

Ayllus, Ancestors and the (Un)Making of the Wari State

Great apes reach momentary altered mental states by spinning

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