January
16
/ 2021
For the first time ever, scientists have identified a non-tobacco plant in ancient Maya drug containers. The researchers say the plant residues suggest that the Maya found a way to make tobacco smoking “more enjoyable.” This find is also shedding new light on the psychoactive and non-psychoactive plants that the ancient Maya and other pre-Columbian societies smoked, chewed, or snuffed. The Washington State University research team, led by Mario Zimmermann, studied a collection of 14 miniature Maya ceramic vessels that are more than 1,000 years old. Some of the vessels were recently excavated and others were from museum collections, but all of them originated in Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"81937","attributes":{"alt":"Archaeologists excavating cist burial at the Tamanache site, Mérida, Yucatán. (WSU) Two
