Bog bodies, ancient psychedelics, and the unsettling chemistry of ritual killing—welcome to history’s darkest trip. We dive into Iron Age bog bodies in Roman Britain—well-groomed men carefully stunned, strangled, drugged, and drowned as sacrifices, their last meals laced with mistletoe toxins and ergot fungus (yes, the stuff that eventually led to LSD). Then we head to ancient Peru, where Nazca mummies, severed trophy heads, coca leaves, mescaline, and ayahuasca show up in sacrificial rituals.

Sources:

• The mystery of the human sacrifices buried in Europe’s bogs (BBC)

• Grauballe Man (Moesgaard Museum)

• Nazca child ingested psychoactive cactus just before ceremonial death in ancient Peru (Live Science)

• Earliest Ayahuasca Trip (Archaeology Magazine)