Use of magic mushrooms goes back 6000 years
The Selva Pascuala cave mural near the town of Villar del Humo has as its central feature a bull, but it is a row of 13 small mushroom-like objects that interests two researchers.
Brian Akers at Pasco-Hernando Community College in New Port Richey, Florida, and Gaston Guzman at the Ecological Institute of Xalapa in Mexico say they believe the objects are the fungi Psilocybe hispanica, a local species containing psilocybin and psilocine.
P. hispanica has a bell-shaped cap topped with a dome and lacks an annulus -- a ring around the stalk -- like the objects depicted in the mural, they say.
However, even at 6,000 years old the painting isn't the oldest thought to depict hallucinogenic mushrooms anywhere in the world. A mural in Algeria that may show the species Psilocybe mairei is 7,000 to 9,000 years old, NewScientist.com reported.
