Hearth site in Utah desert reveals human tobacco use 12,300 years ago

KSL ^

[BenLurkin]

Researchers discovered four charred seeds of a wild tobacco plant within the hearth contents, along with stone tools and duck bones left over from meals. Until now, the earliest documented use of tobacco came in the form of nicotine residue found inside a smoking pipe from Alabama dating to 3,300 years ago.

The researchers believe the nomadic hunter-gatherers at the Utah site may have smoked the tobacco or perhaps sucked wads of tobacco plant fiber for the stimulant qualities offered by the nicotine it contained.

After tobacco use originated among the New World's native peoples, it spread worldwide following the arrival of Europeans more than five centuries ago.

The seeds belonged to a wild variety of desert tobacco, named Nicotiana attenuata, that still grows in the area.

Artifacts there included small sharp stone cutting tools and spear tips made of a volcanic glass called obsidian, used for hunting large mammals. One spear tip bore the remains of blood proteins from a mammoth or mastodon - elephant relatives that later went extinct.

[Veto!]

Are they still dead?
Tobacco kills.

[Rurudyne]

Can the discovery of ancient SUVs be far behind?

[cgbg]

If it wasn’t for the second hand smoke, they still would be roaming the planet today...

;-)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

[DoodleBob]

Did the nomadic hunter-gatherers’ government tax and regulate their tobacco industry to death?

[Samurai_Jack]

hmmm...

CAMELS!

[Fresh Wind]

Can the discovery of ancient SUVs be far behind?

Already confirmed...

[Libloather]

Confirmed by Hearth & Human Services?

[Peter ODonnell]

“Want a smoke?”

“Nah, I’m going to kill off the last mammoth, maybe later.”

[knarf]

[Fresh Wind]

Cavemen smoked Winstons...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAExoSozc2c

[Deplorable American1776]

Tobacco? Was it Connecticut Shade Grown tobacco?

[BobL]

“Are they still dead?
Tobacco kills.”

Yes, to a man. Case closed, it’s now been proven by these poor test subjects.

[Flag_This]

"Hearth site in Utah desert reveals human tobacco use 12,300 years ago"

That's the same time frame as the Pleistocene extinction of the megafauna. Secondhand smoke. The Science is clear.

[Red Badger]

And they ALL DIED!.............................

[SunkenCiv]

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The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization by Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith

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[dfwgator]

In before The Far Side Dinosaur cartoon.

[csvset]

Coyote tobacco, Nicotiana attenuata.

[IrishBrigade]

‘Are they still dead?’

Keith Richards still lives...