In Antiquity for March there is an article by a group of Scottish archaeologists on an investigation into the alleged use of henbane as an hallucinogen during Neolithic times. So far as I can discover, Hyoscyamus niger is not found in archaeological deposits very often.
Aristotle remarked that "some fruits are unfit for us to eat, but fit for others, like the henbane and hellebore, which are poisonous to men, but good food for quails . . ." And it has been postulated that the illness that struck down the Israelites during the Exodus is attributable to their eating quail which had fed on henbane seed.
Pollen and seeds of henbane were discovered in food residues adhering to pottery sherds of grooved ware type excavated from a Neolithic ritual or ceremonial site at Balfarg in Fife. Recent re-examination of these residues has confirmed the presence of traces of hyoscyamus, both as seeds and as pollen. There is nevertheless insufficient evidence to conclude that the ancient dwellers used it as a drug for recreation or otherwise. The site is believed to date from the fourth to the second millennium BC, and has yielded samples of three types of pottery from different locations. One sherd contained pollens of henbane, meadowsweet, goosefoot and mustard, and the same fragment yielded a patch of henbane seeds also.
It is pointed out that the ingestion of hyoscyamus produces euphoria, hallucinations, blurred vision, dizziness and tachycardia. On the assumption that, as in more recent henbane abuse, the plant would have been boiled with a gruel rich in carbohydrate, its seeds and pollen would be expected in the residues. There would be no indication, however, whether the preparation was for internal or external use. Apparently the residues in the sherds had formed during repeated heating of the mixture in a pot. There is still insufficient evidence to assume that the Neolithic Scots used henbane as an hallucinogen.