“We all know about intoxicants” says Peter Whitridge, Professor at Memorial’s Faculty of Archaeology.
From abusing caffeine during finales, to drunken nights on George Street, and the piles of cigarette butts outside of the library, even if we do not partake or acknowledge it, we have been surrounded by drugs our entire lives. As university students, we often live by them.
This semester was the third time Peter Whitridge has taught Archaeology of Intoxicants: a survey of “drug use from the Paleolithic to the present.” The class looked into the archaeological evidence of drug use, and its wider “social, political, economic and cultural implications.” Such intoxicants included psychedelics, alcohol, cannabis, opioids, stimulants, and more.
In this way, Archaeology of Intoxicants may be one of the only classes that you’re better off going into for a better understanding of drugs and their effects may be useful.
To Whitridge, ”Intoxicants are a really important part of not only individuals’ lives, to some extent, but society at large.” As our culture, economy, and daily lives have been drastically affected by drugs and their impacts, this has taken place over tens of thousands of years.
Whitridge says that “although it’s not always easy to see, if we dive into the archaeological record, we can begin to see a universal human experience of intoxicant use.” From apes eating rotten fruit and mushrooms to multi-trillion dollar industries, intoxicants have been in use for a long time, and this class is a deep dive into why, how, and what it’s done.
Whitridge has “always been interested in the things that archaeologists aren’t really paying attention to.” He saw interesting evidence spread across times and places that was yet to be drawn together in a cohesive perspective.
Archaeology of Intoxicants creates a unifying perspective on this phenomenon. It highlights how people in wildly different places and times sought out drugs; a course, in many ways, built around his personal interest.
According to Whitridge, when he initially pitched the course, it received an overall positive reception: “Many archaeologists in the department have worked on sites where they’re full of tobacco pipe stems, glass bottles, and so on. So people recognized it as interesting.”
According to Whitridge, there were some comments from people in other departments, “but none were negative,” more excited, like, “you should look at this as well.”
Although the course is not always available, “it will continue to be offered every couple of years, as long as there’s interest.”
Whitridge says “there are a lot more archaeologists thinking about intoxicants, and the literature is quickly growing.” In this way, it will be interesting to see where the course goes and if it continues to grow.
