Researchers conducting an archaeological study of tombs in western China have found the earliest evidence of cannabis smoking so far discovered, according to a report on their work published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. Analysis of braziers in the tombs revealed that cannabis plants with high levels of psychoactive compounds were being burned during ancient mortuary ceremonies.
The evidence suggests that cannabis was smoked as a part of religious or ritual ceremonies at least as early as 2,500 years ago. Other evidence has shown that cannabis was cultivated for fiber and grain in East Asia from 4,000 B.C. or earlier.
“There has been a long-standing debate over the origins of cannabis smoking, there are many speculative claims of ancient use,” Robert Stengle, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and one of the study’s authors, told Newsweek. “However, this study provides the earliest unambiguous evidence for both elevated chemical production in the plant and also for the burning of the plant as a drug.”
Origins of Drug Use Difficult to Pinpoint
Analyzing the residue discovered in the braziers, researchers learned that cannabis with relatively high levels of THC had been burned in the ritual burners. Yimin Ying of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who is another author of the study, said that written records of ancient cannabis use are very limited.
“One of the long-standing research debates in Central Asian archaeology has been the origins of drug use, especially centering around ephedra and cannabis,” Yang said. “We were interested in knowing if these crops were popular in the Bronze and Early Iron Ages in western China. However, archaeologists and archaeobotanists have