George Dvorsky
Tuesday 12:40PM
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There’s a cave in California, roughly an hour’s drive from Santa Barbara, whose ceiling features a prominent pinwheel-like drawing. Fascinating new research suggests this painting is not some drug-induced abstraction, but a literal representation of the very thing that makes psychedelic trips possible.
Chewed remnants of the psychedelic plant Datura wrightii offer “unambiguous confirmation of the ingestion of hallucinogens” at Pinwheel Cave in California, according to new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The rock site was frequented by indigenous Californians roughly 500 years ago. Just as importantly, the dazzling red pinwheel painted onto the low ceiling is a representation of the plant itself, not a depiction of a shaman’s visual experiences while tripping on the drug, the scientists argue. The new paper is consequently challenging the prevailing altered states of consciousness model (ASC), which contends that “hallucinogens have influenced the prehistoric making of images in caves and rock shelters,” as the study authors write.
Indeed, it might be time to retire this seemingly outdated notion. The ASC model suggests abstract images found in cave paintings across the world—things like swirls, zigzags, dots, geometric shapes, and possibly even therianthropes (part-human, part-animal beings)—were inspired by psychedelics. Some experts have even argued that these abstract images are self portraits made by shamans, or depictions of shamans’ experiences while in a trance. That regular folks might partake in these drugs is rarely considered by anthropologists and archaeologists—and in fact, it’s often argued that these cave sites were exclusive to shamans, not a space for the rest of the group.
Trouble is, evidence to support the ASC hypothesis is sorely lacking, as the new paper, led by David W. Robinson from the University of Central Lancashire, points out. Instead, these ambiguous shapes are likely “stock iconographic images drawing upon mythology and the personifying of insects, animals, plant, and astronomical elements such as the sun,” according to the paper.
More:
https://gizmodo.com/is-this-trippy-cave-painting-the-result-of-a-hallucinat-1845747415
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