This discovery is the earliest solid chemical evidence that ancient people sought out cannabis for its mind-altering properties.
A typical brazier and burned stones that were used in parts of China 2,500 years ago to smoke marijuana.
for its mind-altering properties, and could shed light on the interactions between ancient human cultures as well as our evolving relationship with certain plants. References to drug use, though unverifiable, abound in the historical record. The Greek historian Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century BCE, wrote briefly of theproducing smoke from hemp seeds. The Rig Veda, an ancient Hindu religious text, refers to a mind-altering substance called “soma,” though it’s unclear exactly what it was made of.
The scientists took 20-milligram samples of the interior and exterior surfaces of nine containers, ground them into powder and subjected them to gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. They studied the residues on four of the stones as well. Such cannabis-based traditions may have varied widely across different cultures in Eurasia, Yang added.
Perhaps the exposure to high ultraviolet levels at those high altitudes triggered more THC production in wild plants, the researchers said. Or maybe the inhabitants had actively domesticated strains of this crop for its mind-altering chemical levels.
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