Abstract

The study of microfossils is applied to two pipes from the Villa JMC-1 site, site which has been de-fined as a funerary context from the Pitrén Complex, with the objective of recognizing which plants were used in the act of smoking. Although many written sources make reference to this activity during rituals, there is no direct archaeological evidence of which plants could have been consumed. In this perspective, this study aims to confront the ethnohistoric and ethnographic information with the archaeobotanical evidence recovered from the residues found in the chamber and tubes/mouthpieces of the pipes. The differential presence of starches and silicophytoliths in both parts of the pipes was confrmed. The mouthpieces presented a greater amount of starches, while the chamber presented less frequency and diversity of microfossils. Among the identifed taxa, two morphotypes assigned to Poaceae and So-lanaceae stand out, as well as simile Nicotiana sp. and Solanum sp. starch grains.