Isophoric News · Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Hair and nail tests on eight Inca sacrifices from Peru and Argentina find traces of coca and, in one, harmine, a study reports
Researchers who tested hair and nail samples from eight people sacrificed in the Inca capacocha ritual and buried near volcanic peaks in Peru and Argentina found traces of coca use, according to a paper published online Nov. 3 in the journal Antiquity. The paper's abstract reports cocaine and benzoylecgonine in all hair samples; a figure caption in the same paper lists two exceptions, Ampato 1 and Quehuar. The researchers also found cocaethylene, which the liver produces when cocaine and alcohol are both present, in two individuals, Chuscha and Llullaillaco, and harmine in the nails of one, Ampato #1. The lead author is Dagmara Socha of the Center for Andean Studies at the University of Warsaw. The paper says the study set out to determine which psychoactive plants were given to children during the ritual, and that the results show "commonalities and differences" in the ritual use of such substances across the Inca Empire. The authors write that the uneven presence of cocaethylene may suggest variation in ritual practice, including possible substitution with other substances such as ayahuasca, a source of harmine. They also write that the limits of toxicological analysis make single episodes of use hard to detect and that some compounds are not taken up into keratin, the protein of hair and nails, so other substances may have been consumed.