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Humans

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

By Carissa Wong

11 October 2021

Tobacco seeds

Modern cultivated tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) seed vessels

blickwinkel / Alamy

Seeds discovered at an ancient campsite in Nevada indicate people have been using tobacco for at least 12,300 years, which is far longer than previously thought.

Tobacco plants are native to North America, and humans are thought to have reached the continent around 20,000 to 16,000 years ago. “This suggests that people learned the intoxicant properties of tobacco relatively early in their time here rather than only with domestication and agriculture thousands of years later,” says Daron Duke at the…

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