ALBUQUERQUE, NM — In a new study confirming a long-held hypothesis about early human societies, a paper appeared Friday in the Journal of Anthropological Research concluded that ancient cultures used psychedelics to increase productivity within their startup companies. “In the fifth millennium BCE, workers in the highly competitive environment of the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley consumed psychoactive plants and magic mushrooms in an effort to boost their creativity and disrupt their local market,” said the study’s lead author, Rodney Hughes, and observed that thousands of years before, hunter-gatherers seemed to have used psychedelics in the hope that they could improve their job performance and add more out-of-the-box thinking to their foraging practices. “Everything indicates that psilocybin was not part of any spiritual practice or religious ritual, but was in fact microdosed by ancient Sumerians trying to devise innovative ways to soft-launch their pottery startups and, hopefully, pique the interest of venture- exchange companies. .” The paper emphasizes that psychedelics served other purposes as well, noting that many early humans ingested them for the sole purpose of getting completely fucked up.