An Ancient Psychedelic Brew & Metal Found in an Elongated Skull
Did ancient Peruvian leaders use hallucinogens to keep their followers in line? And do an ancient elongated skull show evidence of an advanced metal surgical implant or is it just a hoax?
Archaeologists studying the Wari people in the southern Peruvian town of Quilcapampa have found hallucinogenic “vilca” seeds in a recent dig. Writing in the journal Antiquity, the researchers point out they found 16 vilca seeds in an ancient alcoholic drink called “Chicha de Molle,” in an area believed to be used for feasting.
The Wari people lived in this area from about 500 to 1,000 A.D. Their reverence for the psychotropic vilca seed has been found in images at other Wari sites, this is the first find of the actual seeds. What is particularly interesting to the archaeologists is the role of ancient hallucinogens and their influence on social interactions.
The vilca seeds would have come from tropical woodlands on the eastern side of the Andes, a complex trade network would have to be in place to even get them. And adding the vilca seeds with the alcoholic drink would increase the intensity of a psychedelic trip.
That trip would be seen as a journey to the spirit world, and Wari leaderships’ control over the substance led to control over their followers who wanted it. Researchers argue in their paper, “[T]he vilca-infused brew brought people together in a shared psychotropic experience while ensuring the privileged position of Wari leaders within the social hierarchy as the providers of the hallucinogen.”
Work continues at the dig site at Quilcapampa, and researchers plan to test where the ancient vilca seeds came from – so they can figure out the rest of the ancient trade routes.
A Peruvian elongated skull may show the earliest evidence of an ancient metal implant, or it could be a hoax.
Livescience.com reports that the skull, which was donated to the Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma City, is elongated and pointed, which is not necessarily noteworthy, as ancient Peruvians used to squeeze and shape the heads of infants. But this implant, if genuine, could show advanced surgery using a foreign object.
Beneath the metal, there is a hole in the skull believed to have been made by surgical trepanation, which is the surgical removal of part of the skull to treat an injury. Trepanation in the Andes was widely practiced until the early 16th century. This skull appears to show a piece of metal that was hammered and molded into shape to fill and protect the trepanation hole. And it appears the man survived as there is evidence of bones healing and growing back together. Â
But is it real? The museum of osteology has not yet determined if the metal is genuine or if it was added later. As John Verano, an anthropology professor at Tulane University, told Live Science, “I think this is something fabricated to make the skull a more valuable collectible.”
Verano has studied a number of Andean skulls with metal plates that turned out to be fake, and if this metal plate is a forgery, it could have been added years ago. Â
More testing must be done, but the museum has not yet announced when those tests will take place. If the metal turns out to be genuine, this would be the first of its kind.
Decoding the Actual Age of the Great Sphinx
The Great Sphinx of Giza is widely believed to be around 4,500 years old, constructed during the reign of Pharaoh Khafre around 2500 BCE. But some researchers argue it could be far older, even 10,000 to 12,000 years old, based on geological signs of water erosion and other conflicting evidence. This ongoing debate challenges the accepted history of Egypt and the origins of human civilization.
Posing as a sentinel on the Giza plateau is the weathered and colossal figure that stands 66 feet above the desert sand, the Great Sphinx, a limestone sculpture with the head of a lion and the body of a human. While we now know much about the history and mythology of the ancient Egyptians, the mystery of the Sphinx has yet to be truly unraveled.
An ongoing battle between mainstream Egyptologists and a more recent wave of independent thinkers debates the age of the Sphinx by thousands of years. The latter insists the imposing limestone statue is much older than mainstream archaeologists, and Egyptologists claim it to be.
Mainstream archaeologists determined the Sphinx to have been built between 2558 and 2532 BCE. But in 1992, John Anthony West rocked the scientific community with his claim that the Sphinx was actually carved 10,000 years earlier before Egypt was a desert. West and others argued that academia had overlooked an important detail—the body of the sculpture bore distinct markings of water erosion.
After his assessment of the Sphinx’s age, West found fellow scientists who shared his observation about uncovering an entirely different history than was commonly accepted. West’s search led him to Robert Schoch, a geology professor at Boston University, willing to pursue an open-minded, out-of-the-box investigation into the origins not only of the Sphinx but the entire region, as well as its implications for the origin of the human species.
In Gaia’s original series, Ancient Civilizations, Schoch explains his first encounter with the figure in 1990, at which time he immediately noticed there was a disconnect between the statue’s academically accepted date of origin and the truth staring him in the face. Upon careful inspection, Schoch realized the Sphinx survived intensely wet weather conditions that stand in stark contrast to the now hyper-arid conditions of the Sahara Desert.
Schoch concluded that academia had determined the Sphinx’s age by overlooking signs of erosion due to heavy rainfall. The deluge that eroded the Sphinx was uncommon to the Egyptian plateau 5,000 years ago, but very common 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. For Schoch, this was an exciting find, but for mainstream science, it was met with derision and denial.
