We know that humans have been using cannabis – for various reasons – for thousands of years, but its history as a drug has been a bit more difficult to pin down. Now we have a new benchmark: a new study puts to the table that some 2,500 years ago, humans in Central Asia smoked psychoactive cannabis at funerals.
Specifically, archaeologists have found traces of cannabinol , an oxidative metabolite of tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC), in censers recovered from the ancient Jirzankal cemetery on the Pamir plateau.
Although there is evidence that the cultivation of cannabis dates back to 4,000 BC, its main use seemed to be limited to the cultivation of oily seeds and their fiber, using plants with very low concentrations of THC (that is, they did not “high”). This discovery is the first clear evidence of the use of cannabis for its psychoactive properties.
Funeral rituals
Excavations began in 2013 , and among the removed artifacts were 10 wooden brazier fragments, containing stones with clear signs of burns. Experts suspected that these marks had a ritual purpose, and they extracted debris from the wood and stones to see if they could determine the chemical composition of what had once been deposited inside.
Using an identification technique called gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the team began analyzing the organic material in one of the bowls. In the first test, biomarkers for cannabis appeared in the inner charred layer. To make sure what they were seeing, they analyzed ancient cannabis samples from the Jiayi Cemetery in Turpan, dating back to 790-520 BC, for a chemical reference signal. They then proceeded to analyze the rest of the samples.
“To our excitement, we identified cannabis biomarkers and local chemicals related to the psychoactive properties of a plant ,” archaeologist Yimin Yang from the Chinese University Academy of Sciences told a news conference. “This is one of the first chemical tests of cannabis use.”
A surprising find
Almost all the burned debris from the stones and the interior ofthe containers contained traces of cannabinol, suggesting that the cannabis plants were deliberately burned by placing burning stones on top of them in braziers.But there was something else. The data indicated a higher concentration of THC than is generally found in wild plants.
The implication of this finding is that the people of Jirzankal sought out or cultivated cannabis plants with higher THC content.It is impossible to know which one exactly, but it seems likely that it was deliberate.
According to the researchers, this suggests that, when combined with Turpan cannabis, which also contained THC, the use of the plant for its psychoactive properties could have originated in Central Asia, where cannabis first evolved.
Then it would not have taken long to spread throughout the northern hemisphere through the exchange routes of the ancient Silk Road..
“I think this is a wonderful example of how closely intertwined humans are and have been with the world around them,” said archaeobotanist Robert Spengler of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History who was involved in the study.
“They imposed evolutionary pressures on the plants around them, and in some cases this leads to domestication. Humans have always looked for plants with secondary metabolites that have some effect on the human body. Premodern humansthey had an intimate understanding of the plants around them.The results of the study, in many respects, should not surprise anyone, “he clarifies.
In the image that illustrates the news, we see one of the 2,500-year-old bowls found in the Jirzankal cemetery, in which traces of cannabis have been found .
The study has been published in the journal Science Advances.
Reference: The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs. Meng Ren, Zihua Tang, Xinhua Wu, Robert Spengler, Hongen Jiang, Yimin Yang, and Nicole Boivin. Science Advances 12 Jun 2019: Vol. 5, no. 6, eaaw1391 DOI: 10.1126 / sciadv.aaw1391
Image credit: Xinhua Wu.
