The cove where the artefacts were found

The first settlers of the Caribbean Islands, when faced with this decision, chose to take their bongs, which they passed down as heirlooms to future generations.

 Researchers at North Carolina State University have dated the ceramic inhaling bowls and snuffing tubes found on the island of Carriacou to several centuries before the island was first inhabited—meaning the bowls were brought by settlers from South America or neighboring islands, and were already heirlooms when they made the trip.

To find out just how old the bowls were, the researchers used luminescence dating, a technique that measures the amount of light energy trapped in crystals, which increases with time.
The bowls found on Carriacou were dated to roughly 400 B.C., and were found amidst much younger deposits, a sign that they were valued possessions passed down from generation to generation.

They were used for consuming hallucinogenic substances, probably the drug cohoba, and played a part in important rituals.
Drug paraphernalia from that period often took on the shapes of animals—birds for their flight, turtles for their ability to inhabit both land and water, and bats, which were believed to be possessed by the souls of ancestors who would emerge at night to eat guava fruit and sleep with unsuspecting women.

It has long been suspected that humans have an ancient history of drug use, but there has been a lack of proof to support the theory.

Now, however, researchers have found this equipment used to prepare hallucinogenic drugs for sniffing, and dated them back to prehistoric South American tribes.

Quetta Kaye, of University College London, and Scott Fitzpatrick, an archeologist from North Carolina State University, made the breakthrough on the Caribbean island of Carriacou.

They found ceramic bowls, as well as tubes for inhaling drug fumes or powders, which appear to have originated in South America between 100BC and 400BC and were then carried 400 miles to the islands.

While the use of such paraphernalia for inhaling drugs is well-known, the age of the bowls has thrown new light on how long humans have been taking drugs.

Scientists believe that the drug being used was cohoba, a hallucinogen made from the beans of a mimosa species. Drugs such as cannabis were not found in the Caribbean then.

Opiates can be obtained from species such as poppies, while fungi, which was widespread, may also have been used.

Archeologists have suggested that humans were extracting mind-expanding drugs from mescal beans and peyote cacti as far back as 5,000 years ago, but have not found direct evidence that this is true.

They consider that drugs were being used to induce spiritual or trance-like states by people who had religious beliefs.