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Ancient pipe and pipe fragments found at five archaeological sites along the Snake and Columbia rivers in Washington, DC contain new research shows. The finds suggest that the people there smoked tobacco-filled pipes long before Europeans brought the plant west.
Chemical traces of nicotine, tobacco's key ingredient, on the artificial date to around 1,200 years ago. That's roughly 600 years before European marketers are thought to have been introduced to Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, researchers report online October 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Cultivated tobacco seeds from about 3,500 years ago in the United States, and evidence of the domestication in South America stretches back almost 8,000 years ago. But this is the earliest "biomolecular evidence of tobacco use anywhere in the Northwest," says Shannon Tushingham, an anthropologist at Washington State University in Pullman.
Tushingham and her colleagues used to make the most of the time. Those plants included bearberry, which are thought to be at large, such as Nicotiana quadrivalvis, N. attenuata and N. obtusifolia. Using chemical signatures identified in those experiments, the team was surprised to find no trace of bearberry on the artifacts. But the scientists did detect measurable traces of nicotine, which could not be identified with the species level, in eight of 12 pipes and pipe fragments.
For many early indigeneous groups, the role of smoking in an important role in ceremonial events. The Native American Communities Today. And Tushingham and her colleagues are working with local indigenous tribes, such as the Nez Perce, to raise awareness of the cultural significance of tobacco and help transition the plant back to its once-sacred status.
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