Anthropology essay is coming up and i wanted to write about psychedelics relating to evolution, how can i?

Question

how can i narrow it down to a good topic. theres a lot on psilocybin and how it helped humans develop say from the brain to simple things like hunting better. Has anyone done anything like this?

Answer 1

One thing you can say about altered states of consciousness, is that until the advent of farming which led to the production of "stone-age beer" circa 10,000 years ago, humans prior to that, demonstrated no written language, and were no different than any other animals on the earth!

Answer 2

A area of interest could be peyote as used by Mexican ethnic peoples

Answer 3

good luck, you sound like you're in over your head, and that is not a wise thing to commit to producing for a grade... something you may or may not be able to actually deliver...

Best wishes. :)

Answer 4

That sounds interesting, and difficult to argue for- where are you going to get good evidence??

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Vikings, since people think their warriors might have taken stuff before their battles to 'go berserk'~ You could argue that the enhanced ferocity of Viking warriors helped their society/people/genes win against their enemies and become more widespread/dominant or something?? But I don't think that would relate to human evolution exactly...

Answer 5

No Scientific research has been done on how psychadelics have in some influenced our evolution, because there is no reason whatsoever that the use of psychedelics could create a selection pressure which could influence our evolution. So unless im just misunderstanding what your topics is, I would say choose another topic because you wont find a single piece of reliable material to base your essay off of.

Answer 6

" There is a lot on this?? " Find a empirically supportable essay.  How about; " why do anthropologists still settle empirical questions politically by voting on them?