Or chewed… according to evidence from a camp in the Utah desert:
Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that hunter-gatherers in North America were using tobacco around 12,300 years ago — 9,000 years earlier than was previously documented.
Tobacco use spread worldwide after contact between European explorers and Indigenous people in North America in the fifteenth century. But researchers debate precisely how and when tobacco plants (Nicotiana spp.) were first domesticated…
It is especially interesting that tobacco was found along with seeds from edible plants such as goosefoot, says Kennedy. “This discovery highlights the ancient symbiotic relationship between people and plants like tobacco that flourish in anthropogenically disturbed soils,” she says.
Tosin Thompson, “Burnt seeds show people used tobacco 12,000 years ago” at Nature (October 13, 2021)
Okay, only the ones in North America smoked. But the others would have smoked too if they had tobacco, probably!…
Just wait till the researchers find the still…
The paper is closed access.