Archaeologists have found chemical evidence of smoking in bone tissue.

In 1700, England imported over 17 million kilograms of tobacco from North and South America. This amount allowed each resident of the country to smoke a pipe each day. However, archaeological evidence makes it challenging to trace tobacco use, as smoking pipes are rarely found in graves, and external signs of smoking are often absent on skeletons.

To date, the primary sources of information about English smokers in the 18th and 19th centuries have been newspapers and memoirs, with men considered the main consumers of tobacco. A study published in the journal Science Advances revealed that tobacco was consumed by individuals from all social classes, regardless of gender.

Determining whether a person smoked during their lifetime, even in the absence of external signs, was achieved using an innovative method of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, which allows for the study of small molecules in biological samples.

The team analyzed 323 skeletons from two British burial sites: an urban cemetery in London and a rural cemetery in Barton-upon-Humber. They then compared the results with data from reliably identified smokers of the 18th century.

It turned out that there are 45 molecular features that distinguish smokers from those who did not use tobacco. Signs of long-term tobacco smoking were identified in more than half of the skeletons. Thus, they proved that traces of tobacco consumption are preserved in bone tissue at the molecular level for centuries.

In the future, this groundbreaking method will enable archaeologists to reliably identify smokers alongside such indicators as black stains on teeth and marks left by industrial clay pipes. The study's results will also aid in examining the impact of tobacco on the health of previous generations. The team plans to continue their research to confirm and identify molecules associated with tobacco use.