Psychedelics, Sociality and Human Evolution

This was the ninth event in a series of “Conversations in Anthropology” co-organized by the Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies at Vilnius University (VU ATSI) and the Society for Anthropological Sciences-EuroAsia (SASci-EU).

Our hominin ancestors inevitably encountered psilocybin-containing fungi widely distributed across temperate and tropical zones. Knowledge of primates’ and early hominins’ diet, ecology and self-medicative behaviors indicates that hominins also ingested mushrooms, including psilocybin-containing mushrooms. The effects of psilocybin on human evolution are indicated by the dynamics of the uniquely human serotonin 2A receptor subtype, which stimulates an active coping strategy response that provides an enhanced capacity for adaptive changes. Contemporary clinical research also shows that such psychedelics have numerous effects that would have enhanced participation in the most important aspect of human adaptation, the cultural niche. These include: enhancements of sociability, extraversion, and openness; regulation of emotional processing with reductions of fear and negative emotional responses; and enhance group cooperation and well-being. The socio-cognitive niche was simultaneously a selection pressure and an adaptive response, and was partially constructed by hominins through their activities and their choices. Psychedelic instrumentalization would have enhanced niche construction through inducing a flexible and associative mode of cognition that produced novelty and total brain integration. A drug instrumentalization perspective suggests that incidental inclusion of psychedelics in the diet of hominins, and their eventual addition to rituals and institutions of early humans would have conferred selective advantages. In this context, psychedelics’ effects in enhancing sociality, imagination, eloquence, and suggestibility would have increased adaptability and fitness. Instrumentalization of psilocybin would have enhanced management of psychological distress, provided treatment of various health problems, enhanced social interaction and interpersonal relations, stimulated ritual and religious activities, and enhanced group decision-making. Therefore, the evolutionary scenario involving the inevitable and established integration of psilocybin into ancient lifeways would have enhanced hominin participation in the socio-cognitive niche. These effects of psilocybin would have imposed a systematic bias on the selective environment that favored selection for prosociality in our lineage.
Michael Winkelman (PhD, University of California–Irvine 1985, MPH, University of Arizona 2002) has engaged in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research on shamanism, psychedelics, and the alteration of consciousness to identify universal patterns of healing ritual and the underlying biological mechanisms. These findings are presented in “Shamans, Priests and Witches” (1992), which provides cross-cultural evidence regarding shamanism; and in “Shamanism: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing” (2nd ed., 2010). Shamanism provides a biogenetic model of shamanism and explains the evolutionary origins of these ancient spiritual and ritual healing capacities. This biological and evolutionary approach to human spirituality is expanded in “Supernatural as Natural” (2008, co-authored with John Baker) and “The Supernatural after the Neuro-Turn” (2019, co-edited). The role of psychedelics in human evolution and healing has been addressed in many of his publications, most recently in “Advances in Psychedelic Medicine” (2019, co-edited with Ben Sessa). He recently guest edited a special issue of “The Journal of Psychedelic Studies” on “Psychedelics in History and World Religions”, documenting the widespread use of entheogens. Winkelman retired from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Arizona State University) in 2009 and is currently living near Pirenópolis in the central highlands of Brazil where he is developing a permaculture lifestyle while continuing his academic research.

Discussion was moderated by Prof. Dr. Victor de Munck (Vilnius University).

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