used for millenniaPeer-reviewedWell documented
Coca in the Andes
On the timeline · around used for millennia ·
What happened
For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples of the Andes chewed coca leaves to blunt hunger, fatigue and altitude sickness, and wove the plant into ritual and medicine. Coca was sacred long before the world knew its most famous derivative.
Why it matters
The humble coca leaf sustained Andean civilizations for millennia — and would later give the world cocaine, one of its most notorious drugs.