Archaeologists have found evidence of tobacco use by hunter-gatherers who lived in North America about 12,300 years ago. According to the article published on the website of the renowned journal Nature, the finding is 9,000 years older than previously thought about the use of tobacco.
The habit of smoking spread around the world after contact between European explorers and indigenous peoples of North America in the 15th century, explains the magazine. But researchers do not know exactly how and when the tobacco plant (Nicotiana tabacum) was first domesticated.tfvg hjmk,. no.
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Now, the study published in the scientific journal Nature Human Behavior last Monday (11/10) reveals the oldest evidence of tobacco use in a hunter-gatherer camp in what is now a desert region in the state of Utah, USA.
The site is beside the old river called the Old River Bed, where people used to camp 13,000 to 9,500 years ago. While excavating a historic site located inside the US Air Force’s Training and Testing Field in Utah, the team found an old fireplace containing four burnt Nicotiana seeds, the publication reports.
The researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the fireplace and its contents. Tobacco seeds were too small and fragile to be dated, but when evaluating remains of burned wood that were in the same location, it was possible to say that the material was used about 12,300 years ago.
Although the team cannot say with certainty how the tobacco was used, the fact that only seeds remain implies that the leaves and stems of the plant (parts with a toxic effect) were consumed, says Nature.
Artifacts found in and around the fireplace helped provide context for scientists. This is the case of a spearhead fragment commonly used by hunter-gatherers in North America during the Pleistocene period (between 2.5 million and 11.7 thousand years ago).
Interestingly, as the publication shows, the researchers believe that the weapon may have been used to hunt several species of ducks, since bones of waterfowl were also identified in the fireplace site.
It is unlikely that tobacco seeds were deposited in the fireplace naturally, explains Nature. Scientists believe they came from inside the stomachs of ducks hunted by Native Americans or plants that grew in the region.
The problem is that tobacco grows in highlands, far from swamps and typical waterfowl foods. “Birds would have to stay away from their habitat and eat something that is basically toxic and not tasty. In addition, we only found moist plants common in the region and not tobacco”, says researcher Daron Duke, from the Far Western Archaeological Research Group, in California (USA), one of the authors of the study, cited by the publication.
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