When did Humans First Use Tobacco? New Study Suggests it Could be 12,000 Years Ago

Humans' tobacco use has a long history, with earlier estimates saying it has been an old tradition for around 3000 years. This estimate may become outdated now, as new research suggests North American hunter-gatherers used tobacco some 12,300 years ago. The study was recently published in Nature. If true, this estimate would mean that humans used tobacco 9000 years earlier than the information available to date.

Tobacco use spread to other parts of the world when explorers from Europe interacted with the indigenous North American people around the fifteenth century. However, the first domestication of tobacco plants is still a topic of sharp debate amongst researchers.

The team of researchers which published the report in Nature was led by Daron Duke of the Far Western Anthropological Research Group at Davis, California. Duke's team discovered the oldest evidence directly linked to tobacco use by a hunter-gatherer camp in Utah's West Desert.

The research site lies along a dry channel of a prehistoric river known as the Old River Bed, used for camping by ancient people some 13,000 to 9,500 years ago. The researchers excavated the historical site in the US Air Force's test and training range in Utah. During the excavation, the team found an ancient hearth that contained burnt tobacco plant seeds.

The researchers used radiocarbon dating to estimate the age of the hearth and the burnt tobacco seeds. The tobacco seeds were too small and fragile. Researchers couldn't use them in dating as they were already burnt. Instead, the team determined that other burnt woody materials found in the hearth were about 12,300 years old. The tobacco seeds were presumed to be of similar age.

However, the researchers could not say with certainty which part of the plant was used. Nevertheless, the finding that only the seeds remained could imply that the tobacco plant's leaves and stem had been used for consumption. Notably, the leaves and the stem of a tobacco plant have an intoxicant effect.

Commenting on the possibilities, Eugene, an archaeologist at the University of Oregon, was quoted as saying, "People in the Pleistocene likely smoked tobacco or chewed tobacco in a similar fashion to how it's used today."

The researchers put forward the view that the tobacco seeds were not deposited in the hearth naturally. They said this after investigating the possibility of natural deposition of the tobacco seeds in the hearth.

Importantly, Duke's team also found burnt seeds from other plants consumed traditionally by the Native Americans and a variety of duck bones in the excavation site. The hunter-gatherers at the place were quite at ease in hunting a variety of waterfowls.

These suggestions raise the possibility that the tobacco seeds could come from a duck's stomach or the plants growing in the vicinity. But tobaccos grow at uplands, which are usually away from wetlands and common waterfowl foods.

"The birds would have to be away from their natural habitat and eating something that is basically toxic and not palatable. We found only common wetland plants, not tobacco," said Duke. His team examined sediments from the area around the time of human occupation.