The Biomolecular Archaeology of Psychoactive Substances

The field of biomolecular archaeology – the application of chemical techniques to characterize and identify organic compounds in archaeological materials – has expanded greatly over the past 30 years. This chapter explains major methodological and theoretical breakthroughs, as well as persistent challenges, in the study of ancient psychoactive substances. Scientific method building and research discoveries have paralleled an expansion of investigations that explicitly connect studies of ancient psychoactive substances with modern communities. The nature of the archaeological record also requires assessing the impact of varied cultural and natural taphonomic factors. Biomolecular archaeology grants the tools to test assumptions that pre-emptively associate certain plants with specific artefact types. While the vast majority of archaeological research concerning past drug use involves residues extracted from archaeological artefacts, recent innovations have made it possible to identify psychoactive alkaloids in human remains such as dental calculus and human hair.