What Was The First Drug Humans Ever Took?

Reaching for coffee to get through the day feels modern, but the instinct to change how we feel is ancient. Finding the very first time a human tried to alter their reality is impossible, since plants and liquids decay without a trace. Instead, we have to look for the oldest substance they intentionally made. The answer is buried inside ancient stone mortars, revealing a costly choice made by people who were supposedly focused entirely on raw survival. Where the evidence is thin, the video says so. Claims are flagged as known, likely, or uncertain. In this video: The morning instinct for relief Why the first experiment left no trace Scraping ancient stone basins The oldest proven chemically altered state Burning survival calories to brew Sources: Analysis of Raqefet Cave stone mortars: Liu et al. 2018, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Raqefet Cave, Israel (doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.08.008) Oldest evidence of alcohol production: Stanford University 2018, Stanford News Ancient fermented beverages at Jiahu: McGovern et al. 2004, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jiahu, Henan (PNAS 101(51):17593-17598) Chemical analysis of Neolithic pottery jars: Penn Museum, Biomolecular Archaeology Project Evidence of early opium poppy cultivation: Salavert et al. 2020, Scientific Reports Psychoactive San Pedro cactus fossil remains: Lynch 1980, Guitarrero Cave: Early Man in the Andes (Academic Press) Oldest brewery found in Israel cave: BBC News 2018, "World's oldest brewery found in cave in Israel, say researchers" Confirming ancient Chinese fermented beverages: Penn Museum 2004, "9,000 Year History of Chinese Fermented Beverages Confirmed by Penn Museum Archaeochemist and an International Team of Scholars" Archaeological evidence of early drug use: Samorini 2019, Journal of Psychedelic Studies More on this: ancient humans what was the first, how ancient humans handled what was the first, ancient humans explained, early humans, prehistory, human evolution, ancient humans.