News Archaeology

Hair analysis reveals Europe’s oldest physical evidence of drug use

Mediterranean cave clues show that islanders ingested mind-bending plants around 3,000 years ago

A photo of the inside of cave with stalagmites and stalactites in a yellow light.

Hair strands found among a stash of objects in this cave on the island of Menorca have provided Europe's oldest direct evidence of psychoactive drug use, dating to about 3,000 years ago.

ASOME-Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

By Bruce Bower

Human hair recovered in a Mediterranean island cave has yielded Europe’s oldest direct evidence of people taking hallucinogenic drugs, researchers say.