![Washington State University researchers Shannon Tushingham and David Gang with some of the ancient pipes on which they found nicotine residues. CREDIT:BOB HUBNER](https://www.nwpb.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/102918TB_OldPipes-1140x620.jpg)
Testing Of Ancient Pipes Indicates Tobacco Was Around In Northwest 1,200+ Years Ago
Listen
Tests performed at Washington State University have found that people smoked tobacco in the Pacific Northwest going back more than a thousand years ago.
Researchers analyzed chemical residues inside a dozen smoking pipes and pipe fragments collected from archaeological sites along the lower Snake and Columbia rivers. The WSU scientists asked themselves, “What were they smoking?”
Archaeologist Shannon Tushingham suspected the common shrub kinnikinnick, also known as bearberry, would be the answer. But it wasn’t.
“Tobacco was definitely a smoke plant that was used consistently for 1,200 years,” Tushingham said, describing the results from the mass spectrometry testing.
Previously, Tushingham said there was “quite a bit of question” whether Native Americans of the interior Northwest used wild tobacco as a smoke plant before European contact. Early explorers and traders found an eager audience for their more potent dried trade tobacco when they arrived on the scene in the late 1700s and 1800s.
The indigenous, wild tobacco species that grow in the western U.S. are related to but do not resemble the farmed tobacco that you might picture drying in a Kentucky barn today. Coyote tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata), which can still be found on sandy river bars in the Northwest, is a low, scrubby annual with smaller leaves than domesticated tobacco. Another species known as Indian tobacco (Nicotiana quadrivalvis) occurs naturally as far north as southwestern Oregon. Both have lower nicotine content than today’s commercial crop.
“There is some evidence in different places of the Northwest that Native people had little plots, that they farmed quadrivalvis because it was a very special, powerful plant,” Tushingham said. “They were managing this plant. It didn’t grow naturally in the Northwest.”
![Commercially-grown tobacco (left) looks very different from the wild variety found in parts of the American West. CREDIT LEFT: DEREK RAMSEY RIGHT: KGROTEN](https://www.nwpb.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/102918TB_Tobacco.jpg)
Commercially-grown tobacco (left) looks very different from the wild variety found in parts of the American West.
CREDIT LEFT: DEREK RAMSEY RIGHT: KGROTEN
Tushingham said the limited availability and lower nicotine levels made it unlikely that anyone could indulge a pack-a-day smoking habit as occurs today.
“What we see at (Euro-American) contact is that only certain people could use tobacco and they used it at certain times,” she said.
A National Science Foundation grant to study human use of psychoactive plants in ancient North America funded the newly-published study, which appeared Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Tushingham’s team collaborated with the Nez Perce Tribe on the research project. The tribe was interested in documenting traditional tobacco use as well as bolstering culturally-specific health and anti-smoking initiatives.
Ethnographer Josiah Pinkham with the Nez Perce Cultural Resource Program said he was struck by how far back the WSU researchers were able to establish tobacco use and infer trading.
“It was quite impressive, the validation of the longevity of the relationship with tobacco,” Pinkham said in an interview Monday.
Pinkham said the Nez Perce Tribe participates in a nuanced, national tobacco abuse prevention campaign called “Keep It Sacred.” A theme of the Native American-focused campaign is that tobacco is for ceremony, not for casual use.
“There were spiritual uses for different types of tobaccos and ceremonial and ritual uses,” Pinkham said.
Some of the stone pipes examined in the study came from ancestral Nez Perce villages along the Snake River that were excavated by archaeologists in 1969-70 shortly before being permanently flooded by the construction of Lower Granite Dam.
The Nez Perce recently received a $200,000 federal grant to support the tribe’s efforts to reduce disproportionately high rates of cigarette smoking on the reservation while preserving ceremonial traditions that make use of tobacco.
Copyright 2018 Northwest News Network
Related Stories:
![A man in a tan coat and tan pants is on his knees in front of a table with a blue table cloth. Six people, five men and one woman, are sitting at the table, staring at the man on his knees.](https://www.nwpb.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/WEB-071724CF_NewhouseForum-500x430.jpg)
Tri-Cities forum draws support for Lower Snake River dams
At a Lower Snake River dams forum in the Tri-Cities, Chuck Bender, who said his family members are tugboat operators, fell to his knees in front of U.S. Rep. Dan
![A field of WSU’s new variety, Bush wheat, growing near Lynden, Washington.](https://www.nwpb.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Bush-wheat-at-Lynden-NEW-500x500.jpg)
New Washington State University spring wheat variety named for Black family with deep roots in Washington
A field of WSU’s new variety, Bush wheat, growing near Lynden, Washington. (Credit: Washington State University) Listen (Runtime 1:05) Read Editor’s Note: Northwest Public Broadcasting acknowledges that all of what’s
![A Cougar statue at Washington State University in Pullman. A real-life cougar is suspected of killing several spring lambs at WSU this week. Officials are warning students, staff and faculty to be aware of their surroundings. (Credit: Washington State University)](https://www.nwpb.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/CougarPride__-NEW-500x500.jpg)
Real-life cougar stalks Washington State University’s lambs in Pullman, home of the Cougars
A Cougar statue at Washington State University in Pullman. A real-life cougar is suspected of killing several spring lambs at WSU this week. Officials are warning students, staff and faculty