Earliest physical evidence of recreational drug usage in europe?

Question

As opposed to medicinal or ritual uses

Answer 1

Some would say the "Ice Man" found in the alps.

The problem is distinguishing between ritual/medical use and recreational use.

Beer drinking among the early Mesopotamians is your best bet. That was clearly recreational and alcohol is a drug.

Answer 2

The Sacred Mushroom for the ancient shamans and warriors of the tribe....and, I'm talking about the early cave dwellers.

Datura, in small doses, produces a euphoria...also cave dwellers.

Once they knew what the properties of a plant were, they used it accordingly....what's wrong with a little recreation in a dreary ole cave?

Answer 3

Ringo Starr

Answer 4

The drinking of alcohol, known to have been brewed by Neanderthals.

Even animals deliberately eat fermented fruit to get bladdered. This probably goes right back to when we were chimps.

"The Bohemian waxwing has a taste for rowan berries that have begun to ferment. The birds are often found in heaps, dead on the ground, having fallen off their perch. Postmortem examinations show they were drunk when they died and that they had acute alcoholic liver disease.

Jaguars, for instance, have been seen gnawing at the bitter ayahuasca vine used by Amazonian shaman, while bighorn sheep in the Canadian Rockies take great risks to get at a narcotic lichen."