Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Jun 12;5(6):eaaw1391.
doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aaw1391. eCollection 2019 Jun.

The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs

Meng Ren  1   2 , Zihua Tang  3 , Xinhua Wu  4 , Robert Spengler  5 , Hongen Jiang  2 , Yimin Yang  2   5 , Nicole Boivin  5   6
Affiliations

The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs

Meng Ren et al. Sci Adv. .

Abstract

Cannabis is one of the oldest cultivated plants in East Asia, grown for grain and fiber as well as for recreational, medical, and ritual purposes. It is one of the most widely used psychoactive drugs in the world today, but little is known about its early psychoactive use or when plants under cultivation evolved the phenotypical trait of increased specialized compound production. The archaeological evidence for ritualized consumption of cannabis is limited and contentious. Here, we present some of the earliest directly dated and scientifically verified evidence for ritual cannabis smoking. This phytochemical analysis indicates that cannabis plants were burned in wooden braziers during mortuary ceremonies at the Jirzankal Cemetery (ca. 500 BCE) in the eastern Pamirs region. This suggests cannabis was smoked as part of ritual and/or religious activities in western China by at least 2500 years ago and that the cannabis plants produced high levels of psychoactive compounds.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Location of the Jirzankal Cemetery.
(A) Map of Eurasia showing the location of the Pamir Plateau and the sites mentioned in this study. (B) Topographic map of the Pamir Plateau and location of the Jirzankal Cemetery.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Typical landscape of the Jirzankal Cemetery.
(A) Plan view of the Jirzankal Cemetery; (B) black and white stone strips on the cemetery surface; (C) circular burial mounds with stone rings. Photo credit: X. Wu (Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences).
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Archaeological wooden braziers from the Jirzankal cemetery.
(A) Plan view of zone B of the Jirzankal Cemetery, (B) aerial view of zone B, and (C) 10 wooden braziers excavated from the cemetery. Red dots in (A) refer to the tombs containing wooden braziers; brazier M49:2 was excavated from zone D. Photo credit: X. Wu (Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences).
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. Chromatograms of the ancient cannabis and the inner charred surface of the wooden brazier M25:2.
(A) Total ion current (TIC) chromatogram of the ancient cannabis from the Jiayi Cemetery, Turpan showing the presence of C16:0 (hexadecanoic acid), C18:0 (octadecanoic acid), and CBN. (B) Chromatogram in select ion mode (SIM) of the ancient cannabis showing several cannabinoids: CBN, cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabicyclol (CBL); (C) TIC chromatogram of the internal charred fragment of wooden brazier M25:2 from the Jirzankal Cemetery; and (D) SIM chromatogram of the internal charred fragment of wooden brazier M25:2.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Merlin M. D., Archaeological evidence for the tradition of psychoactive plant use in the Old World. Econ. Bot. 57, 295–323 (2003).
    1. A. Sherratt, Sacred and Profane: Proceedings of a Conference on Archaeology, Ritual and Religion, P. Garwood, D. Jennings, R. Skeates, J. Toms, Eds. (Oxford Univ. Committee for Archaeology Monograph, Oxford, 1991), pp. 50–64.
    1. Schultes R. E., Hallucinogens of plant origin. Science 163, 245–254 (1969). - PubMed
    1. Schultes R. E., Antiquity of the use of New World hallucinogens. Heffer Rev. Psychedelic Res. 1, 1–7 (1998).
    1. Clarke R. C., Merlin M. D., Letter to the Editor Re. Small, Ernest. 2015. Evolution and classification of Cannabis sativa (marijuana, hemp) in relation to human utilization. Bot. Rev. 81, 295–305 (2015).

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources