Theory on the history of human cognitive development
Not to be confused with Stone Tape Theory.
Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms in Coyopolan, Veracruz, Mexico. McKenna and his proponents place these psilocybin mushrooms as the central force in the theory.
The stoned ape theory is a controversial theory first proposed by American ethnobotanist and mystic Terence McKenna in his 1992 book Food of the Gods.[1][2] The theory claims that the transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens and the cognitive revolution was caused by the addition of psilocybin mushrooms, specifically the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis, into the human diet[3] around 100,000 years ago. Using evidence largely based on studies from Roland L. Fischer et al. from the 1960s and 1970s, he attributed much of the mental strides made by humans during the cognitive revolution to the effects of psilocybin intake found by Fischer.
McKenna's argument has largely been ignored by the scientific community,[4] who cite numerous alleged discrepancies within his theory and claim that his conclusions were arrived at via a fundamental misunderstanding of Fischer's studies.
McKenna's motives behind his theory were based on his Marxist beliefs and not on scientific evidence.[5]
^McKenna, Terence (1999). Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge : a Radical History of Plants, Drugs and Human Evolution. Rider. ISBN 978-0-7126-7038-8.
^"Psilocybin, the Mushroom, and Terence McKenna". www.vice.com. 12 August 2014. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
^Letcher, Andy (2008-02-19). Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-082829-5.
^Nutt, David; Castle, David (2023-03-07). Psychedelics as Psychiatric Medications. Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-19-267852-2.
^Helvenston, Patricia A. (May 2015). "Psilocybin-containing mushrooms, upper palaeolithic rock art and the neuropsychological model". Rock Art Research. 32 (1): 101. doi:10.3316/informit.997302336792843.
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gibbons were closest to humans among the great apes. To preserve the proportions predicted by his theory of brain evolution, Dubois argued that Java Man...
was a name applied to Hesperopithecus haroldcookii, a putative species of ape. It was heralded as the first higher primate of North America. It was originally...
ape-man. Given few fossils of ancient humans had even been discovered at the time, they largely dismissed his findings as a malformed non-human ape....
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arguing that H. habilis was highly sexually dimorphic like modern non-human apes, with the larger skulls classified as "H. rudolfensis" actually representing...
orangutan. The former pongids were reassigned to the subfamily Hominidae ("great apes"), which already included humans, but the details of this reassignment remain...
Drugs Drunken monkey Evolutionary models of human drug use Stonedapetheory Behavior Killer ape Cooperative eye Life history Grandmother Patriarch Topics...
Neanderthal extinction Recent African origin of modern humans Toba catastrophe theory Footnotes There is no universal consensus on this terminology, and varieties...
subcutaneous fat. The "aquatic ape hypothesis", as originally formulated, has not been accepted or considered a serious theory within the anthropological...
australopithecines and dubbed Meganthropus (now believed to be an unrelated hominid ape). The discovery of H. floresiensis in 2003, which preserved primitive foot...
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means "root". The pithecus portion of the name is from the Greek word for "ape". Like most hominids, but unlike all previously recognized hominins, it had...
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Drugs Drunken monkey Evolutionary models of human drug use Stonedapetheory Behavior Killer ape Cooperative eye Life history Grandmother Patriarch Topics...
apes. Fossil studies of the wrist morphology of A. anamensis have suggested knuckle-walking, which is a derived trait shared with other African apes....
exhibit certain neotenous (juvenile) features, not evinced in the other great apes, is about a century old. Louis Bolk made a long list of such traits, and...
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