Scientific American article
From a few tobacco seeds, they speculate that early Americans were smoking or chewing.
From a few tobacco seeds, they speculate that early Americans were smoking or chewing.
Early Tobacco Use in America
- Thread starter Dublin Old Man
- Start date
Wow, Scientific American is a few years behind.?
Ice Age Hunting Camp, Replete With Bird Bones and Tobacco, Found in Utah Desert
In the dead-flat desert of northwestern Utah, archaeologists have uncovered a scene from a distant, and more verdant, time. Just a few centimeters below the sun-baked surface, researchers have discovered...
westerndigs.org
The article looks like an update to the first write-up.
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For us newcomers of the last few hundred years, all this comes as news and amazement. I bet that mammoth stew was delicious.
I’m sure there’s a few forum members that can tell you what it tasted like
It does. The first article is a report on what they found at the time they found it, while the second is a report on the paper published by the scientists involved with the dig.
My father’s Grade A milk barn, designed by himself and University of Missouri professors, plus the fact he was married to the beautiful daughter of a humorous newspaper columnist who made her and the real, actual town of Bug Tussle (defunct since WW2) part of the inspiration for the Beverly Hillbillies, which in turn inspired Petticoat Junction (Humansville Is renamed Hooterville) and Green Acres, brought a steady stream of egg headed professors to our farm during the 1960s.
My grandmother Ma Agee still has an aging but loyal fan base. I authenticated one of her 1963 first edition books just last week. I’m utterly shocked hillbillies were ever popular enough that first editions are rare and outright forgeries of it do exist.
Arial maps have existed a long time, and I was about ten when a group of University of Missouri professors, and students, came to our farm one day and showed my father and mother on an arial map a certain spot they claimed was an ancient Native American burial mound.
We all walked down to it, and I can remember the professors pointing out certain things that would cause that feature to be a burial mound.
Then one asked my Daddy, for permission to dig.
He looked at the man, and said one of his great grandmothers was an Osage and that my Mama also had an Osage great grandmother.
He decided to let them sleep in peace.
He told the professors he’d never consent for having his ancestors dug up from Plum Grove Christian cemetery, nor from another place they were buried, on our farm, that had no headstones.
But so long as they didn’t dig to disinter the dead, they were free to take pictures and document it.
In the last twenty years, several professors looked up that old research and have contacted my mother, and later on me, about the site. The answer is still the same, look all you want, but don’t disturb graves.
We walk over land, where others have trod long ago.
Sometimes I get an urge to go down on the branch by that burial mound and get high using tobacco.
They must have had some potent stuff to smoke, you know?
My grandmother Ma Agee still has an aging but loyal fan base. I authenticated one of her 1963 first edition books just last week. I’m utterly shocked hillbillies were ever popular enough that first editions are rare and outright forgeries of it do exist.
Arial maps have existed a long time, and I was about ten when a group of University of Missouri professors, and students, came to our farm one day and showed my father and mother on an arial map a certain spot they claimed was an ancient Native American burial mound.
We all walked down to it, and I can remember the professors pointing out certain things that would cause that feature to be a burial mound.
Then one asked my Daddy, for permission to dig.
He looked at the man, and said one of his great grandmothers was an Osage and that my Mama also had an Osage great grandmother.
He decided to let them sleep in peace.
He told the professors he’d never consent for having his ancestors dug up from Plum Grove Christian cemetery, nor from another place they were buried, on our farm, that had no headstones.
But so long as they didn’t dig to disinter the dead, they were free to take pictures and document it.
In the last twenty years, several professors looked up that old research and have contacted my mother, and later on me, about the site. The answer is still the same, look all you want, but don’t disturb graves.
We walk over land, where others have trod long ago.
Sometimes I get an urge to go down on the branch by that burial mound and get high using tobacco.
They must have had some potent stuff to smoke, you know?
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I can let you know in a few years. I have a number of heirloom varietal seeds, wild and Native to North America. Some of the stuff is supposedly quite strong I suspect it's best restricted to ceremonial use, but I'll be stuffing my pipe for sure. So far "smoking tobacco" which is meant for a pipe is growing like weed in FL. Huichol tobacco which is extremely high in nicotine has been slow to germinate. Apparently used by "Huichol" people in Mexican ceremonies. Hopi is another one that is good for smoking and very potent, I haven't tried to germinate it yet.