Psychoactive Plants Shaped Andean Civilization, Not Just Inca Beer
Archaeologists have detected DMT and vilca in bone tubes, snuffing trays and ceramic cups from Peru and Bolivia, suggesting psychoactive drugs were shared religious infrastructure across pre-Inca complex societies — while the Inca turned to drinking chicha beer.
The video won't play here. Listen to the audio instead:
The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
Two independent shifts opened up a forbidden research area
Why was psychoactive drug research long taboo, and why is it now a golden age for archaeology? Andrew Lawler gives two unrelated reasons. One is technology: over the past decade, methods for detecting residues on ancient pottery have advanced dramatically, capable of identifying dozens or even hundreds of molecules. The other is culture: drugs were once seen as addictive and abused substances, but psychedelics are now undergoing a revival in psychotherapy and PTSD treatment, putting them back on the research agenda. Only the combination of these two things has emboldened archaeologists to touch this ‘largely unknown territory’.
— Andrew LawlerThe larger the society, the harder to fit psychedelics in
Lawler lays out the Andean timeline: the earliest urban culture appeared on the coast around 2500 BC, followed by Chavín around 1500 to 500 BC, then regional powers such as Moche and Nazca at the turn of the Common Era, and around AD 600-1100 the two true proto-empires, Wari and Tiwanaku. The key judgment is: the larger and more complex the society, the harder it is to integrate psychoactive drugs into religious, social and political systems. By the Inca around AD 1200, they simply turned to drinking chicha beer, and interest in psychoactive drugs declined.
— Andrew LawlerChavín's underground tunnels were a sound-and-light show
Chavín de Huántar was not a political state but a place where pilgrims shared a belief system; it appeared around 1500 BC and lasted at least a thousand years. What really changed the picture was new residue analysis: researchers detected vilca and DMT in a set of bone tubes — bone tubes traditionally used to blow drugs into the noses of ritual participants. Rituals mostly took place in a network of underground tunnels, with decorated conch-shell trumpets and polished stones that reflected daylight from above. Sound, light and psychoactive drugs, led by priests, served both religious and political functions.
— Andrew LawlerCactus-shaped cups, but no mescaline detected
After Chavín, many ‘copycat’ sites appeared in the central Andes. At Catala, where Michelle Young is excavating, cups shaped like San Pedro cactus were found in ritual spaces — fairly strong evidence of use. But researchers could not directly detect mescaline, because it may have degraded. The next step is to understand the compounds they can analyze; if they can figure out how mescaline degrades over time, it may be possible to piece together the fragments and prove the cups really held it. The technology is still getting better.
— Andrew LawlerLlama caravans carried Amazonian drugs up to the highlands
Juan Caprillis found a set of wooden snuffing trays in Bolivia, one of them made in the Amazon but placed in an extremely high, extremely remote cave. This indicates trade networks: people brought psychoactive substances and other goods from the Amazon and from other parts of the Andes. Llamas became the core domesticated animal, helping early societies transport Amazonian macaw feathers, the ingredients for iawasa, and textiles from the coast to the central region. Lawler compares it to the Silk Road of Eurasia — a complex network spanning long distances.
— Andrew LawlerHalf of adult men in northern Chile were using vilca
At sites in northern Chile far from the Tiwanaku center in Bolivia, archaeologists found an enormous number of wooden snuffing boards. How many? It looks like at least one in every two adult men was using them. These snuffing boards were often buried with their owners' remains. This was an extremely widespread psychoactive tradition, extending over a thousand miles and in multiple directions. Although the religious meaning cannot be fully grasped, implements unearthed across such vast distances are ‘remarkably similar’, indicating shared practices behind them.
— Andrew LawlerWari spiked beer with vilca, Tiwanaku snorted it straight
Two neighboring societies of the same period used it in completely different ways. Wari clearly drank large amounts of chicha beer, but new residue analysis and the discovery of vilca seeds indicate they mixed vilca into the beer — mixed into beer, the effect is milder and less intense, which may be exactly what Wari preferred. Next door, Tiwanaku used wooden snuffing boards to inhale strong substances. The two societies existed almost simultaneously; Wari was more warlike and expansionist, while Tiwanaku shows no evidence of an army and seems to have spread its culture in a more peaceful way.
— Andrew LawlerKnowing what works is not knowing how to deliver it
Nome Angrist points out that the problem in global education is not a lack of evidence: structured pedagogy (giving teachers lesson structure, teacher guides and ongoing coaching) and ‘teaching at the right level’ (no one-size-fits-all curriculum; assess first, then teach to the child's actual level) both have substantial evidence behind them. The real gap is implementation science. Take a question that sounds simple but is crucial: where does this go in the school calendar? Does it replace math and language classes, or is it a separate remedial class? A large body of randomized trial evidence simply does not answer this question. Likewise, tutoring works, but how do you make it cheap enough for government systems to scale? Research often tests a ‘gold-plated’ expensive version.
— Nome AngristEducation should learn from tech's AB testing
Angrist argues methodology must change too. Traditional randomized controlled trials are the gold standard, but they are often one-off, slow, do not update over time, and are not run many times in quick succession. She advocates borrowing from the tech industry's AB testing: still randomized, still able to yield causal conclusions, but done fast, done frequently, and more embedded in the implementation system itself. This can answer not just ‘does it work’ but ‘for whom, and where’, forming a continuously running learning engine to cope with the enormous heterogeneity of global education across regions and between urban and rural areas.
— Nome AngristWhat evidence policymakers actually believe is unstudied
Angrist makes ‘the leap from evidence to policy practice’ itself an object of study, rather than an afterthought. She lists a string of unanswered questions: do policymakers respond to local evidence or global evidence? To causal evidence or descriptive evidence? To numbers or words? She also mentions preliminary evidence showing that many well-intentioned policies never actually get implemented, even when the policy itself is correct. Moreover, education is harder than health: the biological mechanisms of medicine are more consistent across people and countries, whereas education is essentially social, and social, governmental and cultural structures are more complex, making implementation science all the more necessary.
— Nome AngristSeventy percent of children in low- and middle-income countries are in ‘learning poverty’
Why write this policy forum article now? Angrist says the field is at a moment of momentum: academia has recognized the scale of the learning crisis. New global indicators show that 70% of children in low- and middle-income countries are in learning poverty. At the same time, a great deal of energy is going into research on implementation science and scaling problems. She hopes that over the coming decades there will be considerable progress on these kinds of implementation questions.
— Nome AngristIn their own words · checked verbatim
One is that the science has gotten much better. The techniques for detecting residues in ancient pots has proceeded in leaps and bounds in the past decade or so. And the other reason is that the culture has changed.
Andrew Lawler2:04
it seems that the larger societies get, the more complex they become, the harder it is to incorporate psychoactives into the religious and social and political systems.
Andrew Lawler4:04
What they found was evidence of bone tubes that had this vila substance, this DMT, very powerful psychoactive that were still inside these tubes which are traditionally used to blow this substance up the nose of a ritual participant.
Andrew Lawler8:08
In fact, they were so common, it seems that at least one out of two men, adult men were using these.
Andrew Lawler13:09
it's the only part of the world where we have strong evidence that powerful psychotropic drugs with strong psychedelic effects in a way helped to shape the belief system of an entire region
Andrew Lawler16:11
a lot of the randomized trial evidence doesn't answer that question. answers the question around how to personalize instruction or how you should do the lesson plan guides, but these questions around how it fits into the calendar or the implementation questions and they need to be rigorously studied just as much as the efficacy components.
Nome Angrist22:18
We have some emerging evidence that a lot of well-intentioned policies just never make it into practice even when the right policy is in place.
Nome Angrist26:20
there's new global metrics that have tried to address what we've talked about that show for example that 70% of children in low and middle inome countries are learning poverty.
Nome Angrist30:22
Figures
| Start of Chavín culture | Around 1500 BC, lasting at least 1000 years | 7:06 |
| Earliest urban culture in the Andes | Around 2500 BC | 3:04 |
| Rise of the Inca Empire | Around AD 1200 | 4:04 |
| Share of adult men in northern Chile using vilca snuffing boards | At least one in every two | 13:09 |
| Extent of the psychoactive tradition in northern Chile | Over 1000 miles | 13:09 |
| Share of children in learning poverty in low- and middle-income countries | 70% | 30:22 |
Glossary
- structured pedagogy
- A teaching intervention that provides teachers with lesson structure, teacher guides and ongoing coaching.
- teaching at the right level
- Assessing students' actual level first, then teaching to that level rather than to a uniform curriculum pace.
- implementation science
- The field that studies how to actually deliver interventions already proven effective into real systems.
- learning poverty
- A global indicator measuring children who are in school but cannot read and understand a simple text.
- iawasa
- A psychoactive brew made by boiling a mixture of plants, some sourced from the Amazon basin.
How to listen
Readers interested in archaeology, the history of psychedelics, or ancient trade networks; and practitioners following global education policy implementation, implementation science and randomized trial methodology.
The journal and news briefs around 17:13 can be skipped; they are unrelated to the two themes.