My earlier point exactly. However, it's the coca that's troublesome.
Personally, I think the "documentary" is up there with the crop circles and
UFOs. CSISCOP would probably tear this film to shreds. There is nothing in
the report to indicate that comparative samples were taken from the
environment or any other contaminant-detection procedure was used (other
than the assurances of the investigator that these procedures were in
place). For those of us who've spent years looking into the development of
domestication and the spread of domestic plants throughout the world, this
kind of silliness is almost unbearable. But, after all, there are still
those who believe that maize came from India, that potatoes come from
Ireland and now, a bunch of people who want to believe that the Solutrean
culture was imported to the new world before the ancestors of the Native
Americans arrived. (Thanks for throwing in potatoes, Smoke.)

John Dendy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask]
> [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 7:48 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Balabanova research.
>
> The research was based on a test for the presence or abscene of nicotene.
> Unfortunately, HUNDREDS of plants from both the new world and old world
> have
> trace amounts of nicotene.  If I remember correctly, even the potato!  The
>  botanical
> chemists I have had look into the subject assured me that the only way to
> tell
>  if
> the sample is actually tobacco, is to have enough of the cell structure of
> the
>  leaf,
> including some veins, to compare with actual tobacco.
>
> Smoke Pfeiffer
>
>
> ***********************************
> Smoke (Michael A. ) Pfeiffer
> Archaeologist
> Ozark-St. Francis National Forests
> 605 West Main Street
> Russellville, AR 72801
> [log in to unmask]
> ***********************************
>
>  Absence of evidence IS NOT evidence of absence.