In Algeria, ancient cave art may show psychedelic mushroom use | Hacker News Reader

In Algeria, ancient cave art may show psychedelic mushroom use

atlasobscura.com

77 pointsprismatic46 comments

Ancient peoples likely consumed everything seemingly edible they came across. Imagine how profound an experience would be taking a hallucinogen as an ancient person, with no explanations for how anything of that experience might of worked. It really seems plausible that an experience like this could lead to entire belief systems of thought, especially during this time when no one knew what a psychedelic trip was or how to place that experience in any context. It wouldn't be hard to imagine entire cultures springing up around these drugs back then. After all, entire cultures have sprung up around these drugs in modern times.

To those interested in the history of human consumption of hallucinogens I can't recommend this book enough: The Immortality Key.

Not to totally disagree, but while the first psychedelic trips would be extremely confusing and profound to the first person who experienced them with no knowledge, prehistoric humans would already have a baseline understanding of altered states of consciousness (dreams, extreme emotional states, other drugs like alcohol).

>Not to totally disagree, but while the first psychedelic trips would be extremely confusing and profound to the first person who experienced them with no knowledge

Very few things are truly magic, and finding out if an experience is truly unique is as close you can get to a miracle in an age of smartphones with multi megapixel cameras and high quality audio mics in the hands of vast swathes of the populace.

But I'm speaking from the perspective of a WEIRD guy[1] -- they seem to be considering dropping the D here in the USA :/

[1] https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_fin...

The things you list other than perhaps dreams don't have an intense visual component like a psychadelic mushroom trip. Faces in tree bark, fractals in clouds, hues shifting, breathing textures are all typical features of a trip. Its a confusing enough experience even for modern users who knowingly take mushrooms being aware exactly what they are and what is coming.

>Ancient peoples likely consumed everything seemingly edible they came across.

And they traveled much more slowly, so I'd expect that what is now Algerians may have had many folks in parallel eat things, die, not what didn't kill them, etc.

The real issue seems to be that some folks take things that used to be taken once a year or less on a much regular basis.

For example, I met someone who was native american. I don't recall which tribe. But they told me that tobacco used to be more akin to how some folks who are Italian will only drink once a year at Christmas.

I've also noticed a sunk costs phenomenon related to the prison industrial complex: if your freedom depends on following a treatment program, and the treatment program doen't allow you healthy choices, then sometimes they'll double down on unhealthy behaviors.

(For example, you can drink alcohol on a Friday and clear it out of your system Monday, but be a violent jerk for those two days your parole officer is not at work, versus smoking a joint in a park on a Saturday morning, then sitting silently in a corner with your wifi off sorting the nature photos you took, having burned as many or more calories as you would in a gym walking around taking them.)

I've yet to sample psilocybin[1] in a good set and setting -- both times I compromised on that due to sourcing issues.

The first time cleared my depression, but that "depressive realism" stayed with me.

The second, my home was unclean and triggering my allergies, and when I tried to go out for a walk, folks I encountered did not help the matter.

(I've met people in a variety of contexts like a party at hacker conference, bar patio, or attending a lecture at the Federal Trade Commission's offices at Constitution Center, and I'd always just try to ask if they needed water or an escort to safety, let them know I (at the time) had a script for 0.5 aloprazolam pills, and encourage them to avoid alcohol for a few hours so if the trip gets worse they can safely take a benzo.

But to be clear, I have zero medical training. I'm just a mid 30s hacker who wants people to stop making bad decisions, and will (figuratively) bend over backwards to assist that if people try to minimize their impact on others. :-)

The Dutch "smart shops" had a good idea in that they rate the strength of the dose, and sell truffles so it's harder to take a bunch at once. They did a similar thing with edibles -- they sold pound cakes, which are less appetizing to eat multiple of than brownies, along with being lower glycemic. Unfortunately I made the terrible calculus to not book a single room, so I ended up wandering the Red Light district on a bad trip.

They're very tolerant, but at the end of the day, it's a business district and if you're "just admiring the neon" they're going to get annoyed even if you're not taking photos.

I did a walking tour during the day, which was immensely educational, but you really need to go through at night to see the neon, though I strongly suggest finding a partner, even if it's someone who seems halfway sane from the hostel bar. Just pray they don't have a midlife crisis during the walk and try to make out with you after telling you their spouse is involved with a conference you've attended for a decade, or you'll wish you'd just downed 1.5mg of alprazolam on little to no tolerance and went to sleep for 16 hours.

[1] Erowid is a good resource for dosages etc but double check what you read there https://erowid.org/chemicals/psilocybin/psilocybin.shtml

The tobacco the Native American was talking about is likely nicotina rusticana which is apparently ~9x stronger.[0] Not to detract from your point but that isn’t what they sell in stores.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotiana_rustica

Interesting! I will bookmark this, thanks for the scientific name.

People often smoke a whole pack though (20 cigarettes, I think a gram in each?)

Probably better to make it legal to buy just one.

I used to bum them when drinking, or sometimes buy a pack, smoke two, and trade the rest for someone to put a beer on their credit card. They were usually getting a good deal since I'd have an American brand...

I didn't like how some people would load up at a duty free store and sell at a profit or stretch the definition of friends and family for gifting purposes, I try to just get one or two of something, use it, and maybe trade a bit of the extra for something else that's hard to obtain.

haha funny, sounds like u are tripping now too ;)

Nah, my anxiety spiked because the guy who tried to kill me keeps showing up in the best spots to study.

I purposefully bought some food so I can stay in a bit, but anytime I say something like that, if I end up going out again shortly after people react like they aren't literally stalking me in a stand your ground state.

(Though someone could argue I'm on a bad caffeine trip, but sometimes a bunch of caffeine + ibuprofen is the only thing that helps a bad stress headache, I have no idea if it's a placebo or a physical effect though.)

> might of

might have*

The mushrooms in the figure masked as some ungulate are the hands, maybe shaped like hoofs, or any other ornament. The people "levitating high" are clearly swimming in an age when Sahara was covered with lakes.

I don't see anything suggesting mushroom use in the pictures, I see another victim of publish (anything) or perish. But people will see what they want to see, of course.

And to prove it wouldn't be difficult. If you paint something in presence of fungi, the spores will be everywhere and fuse with the paint. Each spore has a different shape and size, so you could even guess the family or genus.

No spores or spores of other species? don't make us lose our time.

Spores over the painting? recent times. The images would represent any other thing.

But if they find ancient spores under the layers of painting, (or traces of it as bubbles in the pigment), and are of the shape and size correct, the theory would start having any support at least.

In the giant I see a foetus dead, with a small figure next that has a suspiciously round belly.

>The mushrooms in the figure masked as some ungulate are the hands, maybe shaped like hoofs

That would explain the bottom two but it doesn't the top two. The alternative is to take it more literally and see them as attached to the upper arm and upper thigh. I'm also not overwhelmingly convinced that they represent mushrooms though.

You're right, there is a second set. Maybe feathers then?

I sometimes have the feeling that people read too much in this kind of things.

Or its just evidence that humans have been using these compounds for eons, contrary to what the clowns in government seem to think

There is so much evidence across all of humanity's history, mushrooms, Ayahuasca, peyote, etc.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21893367/#:~:text=Olmec%2C%2....

And also - if you were an ancient human wouldn't you? (Use them) I would.

There is zero literary evidence from Ancient Greek, Latin, Assyrian or Chinese sources. Meaning: it was a long-standing taboo by then.

Or maybe for them, it's like drinking water, no interest for them to talk about something they consume "naturally"

I’m open to this idea, but they talk about alcohol plenty which would suggest it’s not the case.

The book "The Road to Eleusis" has some proof, obviously it's a biased interpretation but it's still interesting to consider.

Road to Eleusis is convincing. But it is about ergot rot on barley, not psilocybin mushrooms which grow naturally all over Europe.

Literary canons are not everything that was ever written, only what people decided was valuable to keep copying. Until more durable parchment and paper were introduced, everything on Europe was written on papyrus, which quickly decays on more humid weather and has to be continuously maintained by copying. It's possible that it was written about, but wasn't a super popular topic in the intervening time and the texts didn't reach us.

Again, points to taboo over lack of knowledge. Think about it — really, no one knew about psilocybin mushrooms till 1957?

the mexican lady shaman that showed gordon wasson knew it before 1957 (life article :)

Right—to be specific— it wasn’t part of European culture till 1957

Norwegian here. I find that hard to believe considering they [Psilocybe Semilanceata] grow all over the place in much of Northern Europe.

That’s exactly what I’m saying! Find some old timer who can speak about his gramma’s mushroom tea and it would be a breakthrough. There is zero evidence. Ok, one medical report from the 1850s in England from a family that accidentally ate them. But that just proves the silence because it wasn't a known phenomenon to the doctor (or the family).

The only explanation that makes sense to me is a massive multicultural taboo against magic mushrooms.

I would agree with you if we were talking about a different psilocybe, but in this specific case:

You have to eat fairly substantial amounts (assume 90%ish water, you probably want at least a gram of dry mushroom) of a mushroom that tastes awful, is tiny, upsets your stomach with indigestible matter, and you'd need to eat them in a fairly short window of time. I don't see it as particularly unlikely that we only realised here after getting it from elsewhere, the Norwegian forests have a pretty substantial list of better options.

As a counterpoint, most or all of that is also true of the majority of entheogens with deep cultural roots, like Ayahuasca. Amanita Muscaria is another abundant mushroom that is even toxic if prepared incorrectly, and yet has a long history of use in shamanistic cultures(though not in viking culture, as is widely misbelieved). I'm not going to speculate much about the extent of psilocybe semilanceata usage in Germanic/Sami cultural history, other than to say that it would likely have become taboo due to Christianity, and therefore went unrecorded.

I always assumed Oracles took hallucinogens (based on no proof). Does anyone know if there’s evidence for this?

Appears there were toxic gases in the caves. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/greece-de...

You should definitely read about Ancient Indian drink Soma. Soma had a cognate Haoma in Persian as well. And psychoactive sources have a long association with gods such as Shiva. This continues till modern day among his most ardent followers. You will find wide variation in what ancient humans would consider taboo.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_(drink)

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20170307-the-intoxicating...

That's just an interpretation of the some of the paintings. Interpretations are a very subjective assessment and change over time. For instance, the same paintings are interpreted as representations of extra terrestrial creatures.

A big difference is that we know for a fact that psychedelic mushrooms were around back then -- they didn't spring into existence in the last couple thousand years.

Sure but rock art is extremely extremely hard to interpret. The foremost world experts in it. Do not make such claims. Unless there was a mushroom literally found at the site how can a serious person make such a bold claim.

(Even if a mushroom or proof of its usage was found nearby. Rock art specialists have found that dating rock art by the surrounding context is not the correct technique. As newer methodology has found that the surrounding context can lead to dating thousands of years off. It’s best to date the art directly)

I'm not saying that this should be thought of as the only interpretation, only that it seems more likely than "aliens". And in the pictures provided by the article, one of them clearly depicts mushrooms

It's not like we can find fossilized shrooms that easily. They decompose things as part of their food source just as they in turn decompose things. I grow shrooms, and they don't have a shelf life for more than 3-12 days depending upon the variety of edible if they're not dried out. Reishi notwithstanding.

Clearly inspired by the anatomy of a foetus or stillborn to me. The stripes in the arms could represent fasciae of muscles. Eye and nose cavities in the skull can be spotted easily in the figure.

Not need to use a supernatural explanation for something that can be explained by normal events.

https://www.darwinandwallace.com/products/fetal-human-skelet...

TL;DR you cannot attribute this rock art to mushrooms.

Rock art specialists will say that interpreting rock art is extremely hard and should be done with caution.

When even the foremost experts have been completely wrong when taking their interpretations of rock art to the indigenous peoples that had their meanings passed down.

There's absolutely some eisegesis going on. The shroomer story is sexy, also politically convenient.

I'm Algerian. Note that if you want to go to certain places in Algeria, you have to be escorted by the police.

the desert looks awesome. for everyone? or just tourists are escorted?

Foreign tourists are always escorted by gendarmes in those places, especially when it shares borders with Libya. Local tourists can visit but some places require an escort.

Yeah man... I don't know. That's kind of a just-so story you have there.

But Joe Rogan would love it!

I don’t take it as an excuse for legalizing drug use.

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