🌅 The Earliest Direct Evidence of Cannabis Use

SOURCE

Caspari et al. (2026)

WHAT TO KNOW

• A new study by researchers at the University of Bern in Switzerland found cannabis seeds and molecular signatures in human hair recovered from an ancient tomb in Siberia dating to the eighth century B.C.E., offering what appears to be the earliest direct evidence of cannabis use. The study suggests humans have been using cannabis for psychoactive purposes for at least 2,800 years, around three centuries longer than previously believed.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Researchers recovered around 1,000 seeds from a tomb belonging to a high-ranking member of Scythian society, a nomadic, horse-ridding culture that occupied the Eurasian steppe from the ninth to the third century B.C.E. While the seeds alone don’t prove the psychoactive use of cannabis, analysis of hair found at the tomb revealed cannabinol, or CBN, a byproduct of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the plant’s primary psychoactive compound, along with weaker chemical signatures also consistent with THC. The researchers say finding both preserved plant parts and human tissue with cannabis compounds is “extremely rare,” and the combination offers strong evidence that the Scythians used cannabis for its intoxicating properties.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• The researchers caution their work can’t prove why or how the cannabis was consumed, though the discovery of the seeds in the tomb suggests the plant may have had burial purposes. The hypothesis aligns with an account of a Scythian post-burial ritual written by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus in 440 B.C.E.: “First they well soap and wash their heads; then, in order to cleanse their bodies, they act as follows: they make a booth by fixing in the ground three sticks inclined towards one another, and stretching around them woollen felts, which they arrange so as to fit as close as possible. Inside the booth a dish is placed upon the ground, into which they put a number of red-hot stones. The Scythians take some hemp-seed, and, creeping under the felt coverings, throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately it smokes, and gives out such a vapor as no Greek vapor-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy.”