Ancient seeds reveal we began using tobacco at least 12,300 years ago

By Carissa Wong

Modern cultivated baccy (Nicotiana tabacum) effect vessels

blickwinkel / Alamy

Seeds discovered astatine an past campsite successful Nevada bespeak radical person been utilizing baccy for astatine slightest 12,300 years, which is acold longer than antecedently thought.

Tobacco plants are autochthonal to North America, and humans are thought to person reached the continent astir 20,000 to 16,000 years ago. “This suggests that radical learned the intoxicant properties of baccy comparatively aboriginal successful their clip present alternatively than lone with domestication and agriculture thousands of years later,” says Daron Duke astatine the …