ABSTRACT
Although it might seem that mind-altering plants play a comparatively small role in the great drama of social history, this is not the case. Medicines, poisons, and intoxicating substances are often made from the same plant and there is no reason why the latter usage should be of lesser antiquity. Such evidence as we have concerning the paleoethnobotany of archaic peoples indicates that the use of psychoactive species goes back to a remote era. The origins of drug use itself is more a question for the zoologist than for the cultural historian, as a number of mammals-reindeer and bear among them-actively seek out plants and fungi for their psychoactive effects.
