ABSTRACT
Most adults regularly use at least one psychoactive drug. Globally popular options include caffeine (found in coffee, tea, soft drinks, and chocolate), alcohol, nicotine, arecoline and other psychoactive compounds in areca nuts (i.e., betel nuts, used by 10-20% of the global population), THC and other cannabinoids, opioids, amphetamine and its chemical analogs found in khat and other plants, and cocaine. Few realize, however, the extraordinary time depth in which people have been interacting with these plants. In many cases, psychoactive plants used by prehistoric humans have in recent times been refined into incredibly potent and addictive substances, with profound global health consequences. Studies that investigate the evolutionary history of psychoactive drug use by humans provide a deep time perspective on addiction, self-medication, and other complex cultural and physical interactions of psychoactive substances. In this chapter Hagen and Tushingham provide a wide ranging account of psychoactive drug use by worldwide human cultures, past and present. This includes a synthetic treatment of major scientific theories of intoxicant use by hominins, as well as a review of analytical techniques and major archaeological discoveries that track a wide range of substances.
