ch as the collection of steppe tribes we now know under the collective title as Scythians, that cannabis was first spread around much of the ancient world. Linguistics have left a trace with this, as the first linguistic roots for the term ‘cannabis’, comes from an ancient Proto- Indo-European root word, “kanap”; the “an” from this root left traces in many modern terms for cannabis, such as French “chanvre”, German “hanf”, Indian “bhang”, Persian “bhanga”, Dutch “Canvas”, Greek “Kannabis,” and so on. Through their high mobility, these ancient nomadic horse riders spread the use of cannabis to numerous cultures, not only in name and application, but also with the religious and magical connotations that had grown around it. Evidence of this has left its traces in some of the world’s oldest existing religions, and cultures.
Indeed, in 2016 a slew of news articles have come out with Headlines like ‘Founders of Western Civilization Were Prehistoric Dope Dealers (New Scientist) ; ‘Was Marijuana the Original Cash Crop? ‘ (Men’s journal) ; ‘Surprising 5,000-Year-Old Cannabis Trade: Eurasian Steppe Nomads Were Earliest Pot Dealers’ (Ancient Origins) ; all stemming from a multi-authored academic Paper, Cannabis in Eurasia: origin of human use and Bronze Age trans-continental connections, (Tengwen, Wagner, Demske, Leipe, Tarasov, 2016), that was published in the journal Vegetation History and Archaeobotany* and which detailed the paramount role cannabis played in the trade, tradition, and spread of Indo-European Culture. So the above evidence regarding the role of cannabis in the origins of Western culture should not be underestimated.
The authors of The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture note that “Hemp has not only been recovered from sites in Romania but also from a Yamma burial at Gurbanesti (Maldova) where traces were found in a ‘censer’ (a shallow footed bowl believed to have been used in the burning of some aromatic substance). It has been found in a similar context from an early bronze age burial in the north Caucasus…. Ceramics were more elaborate than those of the Yamma culture and included, especially in female burials, low footed vessels interpreted as ‘censers’, presumed to be used in rituals involving some narcotic substance such as hemp” (Mallory, et al., 1997). “It seems, therefore, that the practice of burning cannabis as a narcotic is a tradition which goes back in this area some five or six thousand years and was the focus of the social and religious rituals of the pastoral peoples of central Eurasia in prehistoric and early historic times” (Sherratt, 1995).“These ‘censers’ often highly decorated with ‘sunburst’ motifs, are widespread across the steppe region in the third millennium b.c. (extending at least from the Dnieper to the Yenisei) and may be part of a ritual complex. The censers also diffuse westward at this time in Romania, Hungary and further along the Danube” (Mallory, et al., 1997).
Clearly, humanity has had a natural, indigenous relationship with this plants, that extends back thousands of years, and the rich history of various culture’s relationship with this magical, healing herb, is something that we will be exploring further, in future articles….. For more on cannabis in the ancient world, Check out Chris Bennett’s book Cannabis and the Soma Solution .
Barber, EW., The Mummies of Urumchi, (New York: Norton, 1999)
Schultes, R.E., Man and Marijuana, Nat. Hist. 82 (1973)
McPartland J. M., Guy G. W., The evolution of Cannabis and coevolution with the cannabinoid receptor—a hypothesis, in The Medicinal Use of Cannabis and Cannabinoids, (2004)
Merlin, Mark, Man and Marijuana, (Barnes and Co, 1973)
Sagan, Carl, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, (Random House, NY, 1977)
Mallory, J. P. and Adams, Douglas Q., Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, (Taylor & Francis, 1997)
Ratsch, Christian, Plants of Love: Aphrodisiacs in Myth, History, and the Present, (Ten Speed Press, 1997)