Cannabis waited 2,800 years to enter a scientific argument

Archaeologists get unexpected hair-test results too – except the person the hair belonged to lived about 2,800 years ago. In a paper published in Science on 5 November, Gino Caspari’s team describes roughly a thousand cannabis seeds and preserved hair from the Tunnug 1 burial mound in Tuva; six seeds were directly dated to the early eighth century BC. Signals consistent with cannabinol, and weaker ones consistent with THC, were found in the hair: the authors consider this the oldest directly dated evidence of psychoactive cannabis use. But forensic toxicologist Volker Auwaerter told AP that the analysis does not distinguish consumption from external contamination by plant material in the same grave. The study cannot reliably establish either the potency of the ancient cannabis or how it was consumed.