Archaeologists may have just pushed back the timeline of recreational, or rather ritual, cannabis use by several centuries. In a monumental elite tomb in southern Siberia’s Uyuk Valley, researchers led by Gino Caspari of the University of Bern recovered more than 1,400 cannabis seeds alongside preserved human hair, both dating to roughly 2,800 years ago, during the earliest Scythian period. When the team analyzed the hair, it tested positive for THC, the plant’s main psychoactive compound. As Caspari put it, the find “essentially allows us to drug test a person who has been dead for three millennia.”
The discovery is the earliest direct evidence of people consuming cannabis for its mind-altering effects, beating the previous record by about 300 years. The researchers believe the drug played a role in funerary rituals, possibly tied to shamanistic beliefs, and perhaps even in sedating sacrificial victims, though that remains unproven. With the team now sequencing what is the oldest known preserved cannabis DNA, Caspari predicts they’ll “rewrite part of the domestication history of cannabis.” Read on for the full story on CNN of what this Scythian tomb reveals about humanity’s long relationship with the plant.
