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The Problem of the Origins of Ayahuasca.


Web link: samorini.it/antropolo...

Abstract

A third archaeological data that has deduced an ancient use of Banisteriopsis: that of the international team of Melanie Miller, concerning the recent discovery in a Bolivian site dated about 1000 A.D. of a small stock exchange whose chemical analysis would corroborate the ancient presence of 5 psychoactive sources; among them was included the liana of Banisteriopsis, as a result of the determination of harmine (Miller et al., 2019). The critical analysis of this finding is still being studied by me and other scholars, so I do not speak at the moment. It remains that, in the lists I have published (Samorini, 2017b, 2019) of the oldest archaeological dates that refer to the human use of the main intoxicating sources, and excluded ayahuasca – both as liana and as drink – not trusting the archaeological data I have analyzed above critically (for the problem of the antiquity of ayahuasca see also Samorini, 2014).