1300-Year-Old Flask Holds Mayan Tobacco Remains

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A chemical analysis found evidence of nicotine in a Mayan flask dating back to 700 AD. Sophie Bushwick reports.

January 17, 2012

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People have used tobacco for well over a thousand years. And researchers recently found unique physical evidence of the ancient habit. They detected traces of tobacco in a 1300-year-old Mayan container. The work is in the journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. [Dmitri V. Zagorevski and Jennifer A. Loughmiller-Newman, The detection of nicotine in a Late Mayan period flask by gas chromatography and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry methods]

Based on hieroglyphics and images of people smoking, archaeologists assumed that the Mayans used tobacco. In the hope of finding physical remains, the researchers examined the inside of a particular clay flask dating back to the year 700 AD. Analysis of the flask revealed the presence of nicotine, as well as a few products of nicotine oxidation.

The chemical analysis owes some of its success to a dirty container?because the inside of the flask was not cleaned, the nicotine residue remained uncontaminated. It also helped that the flask had a single purpose, and was not reused to hold multiple products. But the most important aid to this discovery was undoubtedly some Mayan writing on the container. Which roughly translated means: container for tobacco.

?Sophie Bushwick

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]?
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