Prehistoric man painted while high on drugs?

WASHINGTON: Prehistoric man made cave art while high on hallucinogenic drugs, a new research has claimed. A team of international scientists studied paintings dating as far back as 40,000 years.

They discovered that the spiral-like and labyrinthian designs that are often found in the paintings at locations that are thousands of kilometres away from each other didn't just pop up by coincidence.

These patterns are consistent with those that many humans see after taking hallucinogenic drugs, leading scientists to believe that ancient cavemen were high while painting. Known as 'Turing instabilities' , these hallucinations are common after ingesting a number of different plants with psychoactive properties, science and technology website Gizmodo reported.

The patterns resemble "neural patterns" that mimic the structural make-up of the brain and are as meaningful as those that initially experienced them perceived them to be.

"When these visual patterns are seen during altered states of consciousness, they are directly experienced as highly charged with significance," the researchers said. "In other words, the patterns are directly perceived as somehow meaningful and thereby offer themselves as salient motifs for use in rites and rituals ," they said.

This isn't the first time it has emerged that hallucinogenic drugs may have played a role in early cave paintings , though it's the most scientifically rigorous evidence yet. A few years ago, a 6,000-year-old cave painting in Spain created a buzz after scientists identified what appeared to be images of psychedelic mushrooms in one of the murals. PTI