That’s the cheesy title of what should be a fascinating National Geographic documentary on a subject that we’ve covered here a number of times: the idea that the Amazon was once thickly settled. If anyone sees it, do let us know what it’s like.
Nibbles: Origins, Fungi, Animal welfare, Climate & history, Salmon, Butter
- A shaman’s grave from the verge of agriculture.
- Mushroom improves violin’s sound.
- Good news for California’s livestock.
- Linking climate and the rise and fall of China’s dynasties.
- I love pictures of gigantic fish, don’t you? Not farmed, thankfully.
- Making butter.
Nibbles: Nibbles, Nibbles, Nibbles
- Terra Madre day 4: Fast Nibbles.
- Biggest Chinese nibble in the world.
- Martin Luther’s nibbles.
Nibbles: Cereal, Bushmeat, Aquaculture, Olive oil
- Neolithic parboiled bulgur wheat.
- Applying “catch shares” to bushmeat.
- The pros and cons of fish farming in Latin America.
- “It’s a masochistic business. Masochistic.”
American farmers got stoned a lot
Two articles this morning both point to the widespread use of hallucinogenic plants in ancient South America. National Geographic reports that traces of the mind-altering substance harmine have been found in the hair of Tiwanaku mummies from the coastal Chilean desert dating back to 800-1200 AD. Harmine comes from the Amazonian vine Banisteriopsis caapi, which suggests that an extensive trade network linked the rainforest to the desert. Elaborate sniffing kits have been found in many Tiwanaku tombs and also, as a Times article points out, at the other end of the continent in the Caribbean. Archaeologists have found ceramic bowls and inhaling tubes on the island of Carriacou and have identified them as originating in South America between 100-400 BC. The drug of choice in this case may have been cohoba.
So why was everyone getting high?
Richard Davenport-Hines, a former history lecturer at the London School of Economics and author of The Pursuit of Oblivion, a global history of narcotics, believes humans have been using drugs for thousands of years. “Drug use became widespread in many early agriculture-based societies simply because it was the only way people could cope with spending long hours working in the fields, often in horrible conditions like baking sun,” he said.