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Файл:Ординатура / Хирургия / Библиотека им академика М.И. Перельмана / Книга_5515_Библиотеки_им_академика_М_И_Перельмана.pdf
Although wild flax fibers have been found at an archaeological site at Dzudzuana
Cave (dated at 30,000 years ago), located in the foothills of the Caucasus in what is
now the country of Georgia, researchers had to wait for archaeological evidence from
sites dated to 20,000 years later to find any similar use of cannabis. The first
documented archaeological evidence of cannabis comes from Japan, where
paleoecologist Makiko Kobayashi and colleagues examined ancient seeds from Jomon
period archaeological sites. The Jomon period in Japan (2,500– 14,000 years ago) can
be defined by the different kinds of pottery the people of this culture made. However,
the surviving seeds do not inevitably mean that the Jomon were the first cannabis users,
for two reasons. First, other people may have been using it, but we have not yet found
the archaeological evidence; and second, the Jomon may not have cultivated it
consistently. Indeed, there is some debate whether the Jomon cultivated plants at all, or
whether they simply practiced slash-and-burn subsistence. Recent evidence does
suggest, however, that they were adept at cultivating plants that included chestnuts and
hops (genus Humulus, the seeds of which can be confused with those of Cannabis).
Other Jomon sites (Matsugasaki and Torihama: 5,000–6,000 years ago) suggest that
cannabis was used as a fiber, so earlier use is not a far-fetched idea. Nonetheless, Akira
Matsui and Masaaki Kanehara suggest that such plant husbandry was sporadic, and that
widespread agricultural practice in Japan did not occur until the Yayoi period (1,500–
2,500 years ago). Most researchers believe that cannabis was introduced to Japan and
hence to the Jomon from China, and do not think that the Jomon were the first to use it.
Examination of time slices for cannabis distribution at archaeological sites can
reveal whether humans were actually using cannabis. One study by Tengwen Long,
William Hegman, and John McPartland reviewed the distribution of cannabis remains at
the time before humans began living in large groups and domesticating plants and
animals (about 12,000 years ago). The authors’ analyses of European core samples are
particularly enlightening in showing that attempts to pin down “when and where” using
pollen are problematic for several reasons. One of the major reasons is the close
physical similarity of the pollen of the hops and cannabis plants because of their
common ancestry. Many researchers simply refer to pollen that looks like hops or
marijuana pollen as “CH pollen” (Cannabis/Humulus). Their work suggests that the first
steppe communities that coalesced in the Tibetan Plateau may have been the first
populations to associate with cannabis, and to implement its spread about 12,000 years
ago. McPartland and his colleagues also indicate that cannabis was spread much earlier
by natural agents such as wind or transport by animals. By the time human populations
were coalescing into large sedentary social groups, cannabis can already be found in
parts of Europe and Asia quite distant from the plant’s area of endemism. McPartland
and colleagues mapped the distribution of cannabis at 11,500 years ago in Europe and
Asia (fig. 2.1), and it is more than likely that any human group in those occupied areas
was using cannabis in some way. McPartland’s group found cannabis pollen from Spain
to Turkey as far back as 18,500 years ago. Was it moved there by humans, as we saw
for the distribution at 4,000 to 5,000 years ago? We can’t know, but we do know that the
humans this far back in Europe were not farming it, and neither were humans elsewhere.
Figure 2.1. Map of the distribution of Cannabis in Asia and Europe at approximately 12,000 years ago from
seed/pollen studies. Adapted from McPartland, Hegman, and Long (2019).
Ethan B. Russo, Michael P. Fleming, and Robert C. Clarke have performed metaanalyses of Cannabis specimens from cores collected at many Eurasian sites. They
determined from the literature whether an archaeological site had pollen, or seeds, or
paper products made from cannabis, or textiles or cordage made of cannabis fibers, or
even the imprint of textiles or cordage. They came to strong conclusions, mostly in line
with those of McPartland’s group, about the presence of cannabis in China and
surrounding areas, as well as at European sites. Since the archaeological sites in
question have been dated using radiocarbon methods, Russo and his colleagues had
relatively precise time estimates for the occurrence of cannabis at these sites. They
focused on those particular sites because they were where nearly all of the early
cannabis was found at the time of their meta-analysis. Tengwen Long has published
several papers building on the initial meta-analyses. Since 2017 he had collaborated
with several researchers, including McPartland, to develop a more complete picture of
cannabis distribution in Eurasia.
The results of these analyses show that most of the dates for the occurrence of
cannabis in Asia are less than 6,200 years ago and for Europe are less than 5,000 years
ago (except for one questionable site in eastern Europe that is dated at 25,000 years ago
and probably should be disregarded). One interesting result is that there is a marked
increase in the number and locations of cannabis remains at about 5,000 years ago. Long
and colleagues suggest that cannabis “might be associated with the establishment of a
trans-Eurasian exchange/migration network through the steppe zone, influenced by the
more intensive exploitation of cannabis achenes popular in Eastern Europe pastoralist
communities.” Indeed, a connection may have been made between cannabis cultivators
in these regions. More precisely, Long and colleagues suggest that the Hexi Corridor
served as a conduit for the transfer of materials and knowledge about hemp across
Eurasia. The Hexi Corridor (also known as the Gansu Corridor) refers to a narrow
stretch of relatively fertile plain in China west of the Yellow River. It was sandwiched
between the desert terrain of Mongolia and the high Tibetan Plateau, and later became
part of the famous Silk Road route.
Whereas pollen core data point to a broad distribution of the cannabis plant in Asia
and Europe more than 15,000 years ago, the archaeological evidence for cultivation of
cannabis is somewhat absent until 5,000 years ago. And here is where we separate the
historical story of cannabis into three tales—Fiber, Food (Fun), and Fitness (Medicine).
Fiber
Clarke and Merlin devote an entire chapter of their magnum opus to cannabis as fiber
and make it clear that the history of this use is complicated and tortuous. This
convolution is caused by the fact that different people discovered the utility of hemp as
a fiber independently and at different times. If the history of cannabis use had a simple
vertical pattern of being handed from culture to culture in a sequential fashion, then the
story would be quite linear and easier to understand. But while there is some verticality
in the way cannabis spread as a fiber source, the independent discovery of its utility by
many cultures complicates the story.
Humans have used plants for fiber for millennia (table 2.1). The bast, leaves, and
seed hairs of plants make good raw material for fibers, and humans have been
particularly adept at determining which plants could best be used as fibers. The stem of
the cannabis plant has an interior part called the phloem, which is made of what are
called the hurd (a wood-like interior part of the stem) and the bast (or its fibrous
exterior; see chapter 4). The hurd is most commonly used in making paper and for
insulation. The bast fibers of plants have been particularly useful in textile production
because of their strength. After all, the bast and the hurd are what give the cannabis
plant support to grow and stay upright. Before being used, the stems need to be retted to
separate the bast from the hurd. This is done by laying the stems on the ground and
rotating them for two weeks to a month. Over time the weathering on the ground
separates the bast from the hurd, and the two components are then used differently. The
retting process leaches out some of the cannabinoids in the cannabis plant, which can
then be detected in core samples from archaeological sites. This factor has contributed
to a better understanding of how various cultures have used the retting process on
cannabis.
As the meta-analyses have concluded, central Asia was a hotbed of cannabis use,
and most of the documented early use of hemp comes from archaeological sites in
China. Clarke and Merlin deliver a tour-de-force analysis of cannabis as fiber, and
focus most of their efforts on China for good reason—most of the active use of cannabis
as fiber is from Chinese cultures starting at about 6,200 years ago, so much so that
ancient China was known as “the land of mulberry and hemp.” Much of the evidence of
cannabis use for this area is historical, taken from preserved writings of this early
period. The other evidence comes from archaeological sites. The earliest record of
cannabis use as fiber in textiles is from Banpo, a Yangshao site that could be as old as
6,200 years. The evidence in question is a textile imprint on pottery, the commonest
category of artifact found at Chinese archaeological sites.
Table 2.1. PLANTS USED AS SOURCE MATERIAL FIBERS BY HUMANS
Bast fibers Leaf fibers Seed hair
fibers
Flax* Linum
usitatissimum
Abaca Musa textilis Akund
floss
Calotropis procera and
C. gigantea
Hemp* Cannabis sativa Cantala Agave
cantala
Bagasse Saccharum officinarum
Indian
hemp
Apocynum
cannabinum
Henequen Agave
fourcroydes
Bamboo Various species
Jute Corchorus
species
Maguey Agave
americana
Bombax
cotton
Bombax species
Tossa jute Corchus
olitorius
Mauritius
hemp
Furcraea
foetida
Coir Cocos nucifera
White jute Corchus
capsularis
Phormium Phormium
tenax
Cotton* Gossypium species
Kenaf* Hibiscus
cannabinus
Sisal Agave
sisalana
Floss-silk
tree
Ceiba speciosa
Ramie* Boehmeria
nivea
Kapok Ceiba pentandra
Bast fibers Leaf fibers Seed hair
fibers
Roselle Hibiscus
sabdariffa
Milkweed
floss
Asclepias syriaca and
A. incarnata
Sunn Crotalaria
juncea
Urena Urena lobata
Kudzu* Pueraria
thumbergiana
Paper
mulberry*
Broussenetia
papyrifera
Note: While hem p fibers have been us ed to m ake textiles for clothing, shoes , and sandals , for m aking paper, and for bas ket
making, its m ost prim itive us e was most likely for cordage. An asterisk indicates that Clarke and Merlin cons ider thes e as used
by Bronze Age hum ans .
The earliest actual cordage and textiles from archaeological sites are from the
Liangzhu culture in China, dated at 5,500 to 4,200 years ago. As the use of cannabis for
textiles and cordage grew in China, the human spark got to work by expanding its uses
in art and other cultural endeavors. Archaeological sites have yielded artifacts
demonstrating the use of hemp as burial cloths, canvas for art, and textiles for making
banners. Burial practices were closely related to hemp use in ancient China, and even
today hemp garments are worn as part of the grieving process. Silk was often
embroidered into hemp backing to create cloth. Hemp cloth bags and enclosures were
used to protect or preserve delicate items such as documents. Chinese lacquerware,
famous for its beauty and durability, was also enhanced as far back as 3,000 years ago
by hemp fiber layers applied during the lacquering process. Wigs were also made from
hemp, but perhaps the most stunning use of hemp by the ancient Chinese was in warfare.
Hemp was used first as tensile string for bows and longbows, and later as crossbow
strings, as well as in the construction of catapults, as sails on warships, and for other
military uses.
Figure 2.2. Ancient Chinese symbols for hemp (ma), male hemp (hsi) and female hemp (chü).
The written history of cannabis begins at about 4,700 years ago, in writings
referring to the mythical Chinese Emperor Shennong (not to be confused with Wang
Zhen’s Nong Shu or Book of Agriculture, written 800 years ago, which also refers to
cannabis extensively). In this ancient writing the emperor encouraged his people to
grow and cultivate hemp. A multitude of subsequent texts, not only from China but all
over the world, began referring to hemp as an agricultural crop. To review these texts is
beyond the scope of this book, but Clarke and Merlin offer a good summary. Hemp was
also actively used in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan after 6,000 years ago. Its use in Taiwan
and Korea was almost surely stimulated by its import from China. Although cannabis
made it to Japan long before 6,000 years ago, the first Japanese uses of hemp as
cordage and textile occurred somewhat later than in China, so it is difficult to tell
whether the ancient Japanese concocted their own uses for the plant, or if all the
concepts of the plant’s usage came from China.
It appears likely that cannabis as fiber made its way to Mesopotamia and Egypt too,
although the historical record is sparse, and it is assumed that its use as fiber in those
regions was minimal at best. Use of hemp as fiber in Palestine and the surrounding
areas inhabited by the Jewish tribes was at first considered lacking by scholars. But
given that hemp fiber garments were part of the burial ritual of ancient Hebrews, this
assumption is clearly wrong. In fact the word cannabis itself is probably derived from a
Semitic language and was transferred first by the Scythians, who were well-known
users of the plant.
Cannabis use as fiber moved into Europe at about 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. There
is ample historical and archaeological evidence for its use in fibers in the
Mediterranean, but there the focus was on cordage and sails for ships. Tracing the
origin of words is often illustrative of how humans create and use things. We can trace
the origin of the word canvas to its most common Mediterranean use in the past as
sailcloth: Canvas comes from the Anglo-French word canevaz, which in turn derives
from the Old French word canevas, which stems from the Latin word cannapaceus
(which means “made from hemp”). The Latin word probably derives from the Greek
word kannabis, which made its way to the Greeks from the Scythians. The Scythians
probably adopted the original word from a Semitic language, according to John Fike
from the words kaneh (meaning hemp) and bosm (meaning aromatic). The convoluted
game of “telephone” that children play is the best way to describe this process of
language transmutation. But it is amazing in this case how recognizable the words
remained as languages developed.
Since cannabis started to be used as a fiber in Japan, its utility expanded, and the
plant itself has been incorporated into Japanese culture. For instance, sumo wrestlers
engage in a ritual called dohyō-iri, which involves the ceremonial parading of the
yokozuna (the highest category of sumo wrestler) around the dohyō or ring prior to a
match. Part of the yokozuna’s ceremonial garb is a huge rope, made from hemp, that
adorns his waist. The rope is woven from hemp fibers by the members of the
yokozuna’s stable and is called tsuna, which translates to “horizontal rope.” Hemp has
also become an important part of Zen Buddhist rituals and has been incorporated into
Japanese fables.
Perhaps the cleverest Japanese parable concerning hemp is the well-known story of
the ninja and the hemp plant. To increase the ninja’s jumping skills, he is directed in this
fable to plant cannabis seeds and, as soon as they sprout, to jump over the seedlings.
Sounds easy, right? Not really, as the ninja must jump over the plants each day
thereafter. Anyone who has watched a cannabis plant grow over several weeks knows
that it will indeed grow quickly—and sometimes to a height of nine to twelve feet. A
ninja with only moderate jumping skills at the beginning of the parable must develop
astonishing athleticism by the end.
Hemp has also been cultivated and used as fiber in South Asia for some time, but
as Clarke and Merlin point out, not as extensively as in East Asia. The oldest historical
evidence for the use of cannabis as fiber in this region comes from the first of the Vedic
Hindu scriptures (Kausitaki Brahmana of the Rig Veda). In this writing, from about
3,500 years ago, the sexual forms of cannabis are described. The Chinese also knew of
the sexual differences of cannabis plants, as they had separate linguistic symbols for
male and female plants (fig. 2.2). There is also mention of cannabis in the Mahābhārata
Sanskrit text, which reports that Scythians imported hemp fiber in textiles about 2,800
years ago. The Scythians were a nomadic people also known as the Saka, who played a
major role in the use of cannabis as a psychoactive substance. Overall, most East Asian
peoples at that time were more interested in hemp as a medicinal, ritual, and
psychoactive source than as a fiber source. Several authors point to the region’s ready
availability of other fibers such as ramie, jute, cotton, and flax, which in many ways
made superior textiles.
Food (Feed and Fun)
The history of cannabis as food and as a psychoactive plant is much younger than its use
as fiber. (Clarke and Merlin are the go-to text for in-depth analysis of this history.) How
cannabis has served as food is a more straightforward story than how it has been used
as a psychoactive or medicinal plant.
Many different tissues of the Cannabis plant can be used for nutrition, but some are
more appropriate than others. Although some cultures have used the leaves in broth
concoctions, it appears that most humans have settled on a single part of the plant as a
source of nutrition, namely the seed. Humans have developed ways to ingest the seeds
themselves, and to extract oil from them for ingestion.
Cannabis seeds have a high essential fatty acids content, as well as proteins, and
can easily be ingested and processed by the human body. These are fatty acids such as
Omega-3 and Omega-6 that are essential for normal human physiology, but our bodies
do not synthesize them, so we need to get them from outside sources. Fish oils and oil
seed plants such as flax are good sources of these important fatty acids, but hemp seeds
also appear to have a suitable ratio of essential fatty acids to other chemicals for human
consumption. Humans who lived during the hunter-gatherer period somehow knew that
they could obtain these nutrients from plants and fish and included them as staples of
their diets.
Evidence for hemp seeds as dietary items is older than the evidence for fiber use.
The oldest known archaeological evidence for hemp seed usage as food comes from the
Jomon era in Japan. Hemp seeds associated with the typical and diagnostic earthenware
of the time were found at a site in the Boso Peninsula of central Japan, dated to 10,000
years ago, making them the oldest hemp fruit material on record so far. Other
archaeological finds support the ancient use of hemp seeds as food in Japan, China, and
Korea, as well as in what is now eastern Europe.
We are now ready to consider the earliest evidence for smoking cannabis. What
kind of evidence do we need to determine the existence of smoking cannabis? Perhaps
the most direct evidence would be finding burnt resinous remains of cannabis at an
archaeological site. A second kind of information would be a written description of the
practice of smoking. But the physical evidence for cannabis smoking trumps any written
kind of evidence, although the younger instances of written evidence will become
important for a full understanding of the history of smoking cannabis.
In 2019 archaeologist Meng Ren and six colleagues analyzed residue from nine
wooden braziers found in western China at the Jirzankal Cemetery dating from 2,400 to
2,600 years ago. Apparently the braziers (fig. 2.3) were filled with stones, upon which
plant material was placed and burned as an offering in funerary rites. It is a small step
to imagine that the smoke from the offering was inhaled by the bereaved. That cannabis
was associated with funerary practices in China is well established by the work of
Hongen Jiang and colleagues, who discovered a grave at the Jiayi Cemetery of Turpan,
northwestern China, where cannabis plants were laid over the corpse as a shroud. This
site is dated a little before the Jirzankal Cemetery find (2,400 to 2,800 years ago), but
because there was no evidence of burning or smoking, this site cannot be claimed as the
first evidence of smoking marijuana. Ren and colleagues analyzed the burnt remains in
the braziers using gas chromatography, which can determine whether the breakdown
products of the cannabinoids in cannabis were present. Their analyses clearly showed
the presence of cannabinol (CBN), cannabidiol (CBD), and cannabicyclol (CBL).
Cannabinol is a breakdown product of both cannabidiol and tetrahydrocannabinol
(THC), and its presence is convincing proof of the presence of both precursors in the
resin. Because of the large amount of preserved residue on the rocks and in the braziers,
Ren and colleagues concluded that the hemp plants burnt in the funeral rites must have
had a substantial kick.
Figure 2.3. Drawings of two examples of wooden braziers found at the Jirzankal Cemetery in western
China. Note the rocks in the example on the left, which were fitted into the hole in the brazier. Adapted from
M. Ren et al. (2019).
The first documented instance of smoking cannabis can thus be set at about 2,500
years ago. The history of psychoactive cannabis use gets richer as the writings referring
to it become more recent. For instance, Herodotus, an ancient Greek scholar and
historian who lived in Halicarnassus (now part of Turkey) about 2,300 years ago, wrote
of cannabis use in the steppes near the Caspian Sea. In his Histories, he explicitly
described cannabis ingestion by smoking among the people from the Caspian steppes.
As for the Scythians, Herodotus described how, as part of their burial rituals, the
bereaved would sit in small tents where the plants were burned on top of small stones:
“After the burial, those engaged in it have to purify themselves, … they make a booth by
fixing in the ground three sticks inclined towards one another, and stretching around
them woolen 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, and
then add some hemp-seed.”
Herodotus recounted the effect of this ritual further: the burning cannabis “gives out
such a vapor as no Grecian vapor-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy,
and this vapor serves them instead of a water-bath; for they never by any chance wash
their bodies with water.”
The smoking of cannabis hardly mellowed the Scythians; Herodotus’s descriptions
of this steppe people are quite brutal. According to him there was considerable
decapitation, blood, and gore involved with this culture. For instance, the burial ritual
of a Scythian king included the strangling of fifty of his young subjects, their
disemboweling, and the filling of the body cavities with chaff, followed by sewing up
the cavities. Simultaneously, fifty of the king’s best horses were strangled and
ceremonially placed upright by the use of stakes through their bodies; then the fifty
chaff-filled human bodies were placed on the horses and also fixed upright by the use of
stakes that ran parallel to their spines. The so-called riders were then placed in a circle
around the king’s tomb and left to rot.
While Herodotus might have exaggerated the grotesqueness of Scythian culture, he
was probably fairly accurate about the cannabis smoking of the region’s people. Ren
and colleagues point out that artifacts from the frozen tombs of Pazyryk, found in the
southern Altai Mountains in modern-day Russia, partially corroborate Herodotus’s
account of cannabis smoking. This site, dated at 2,500 years ago, held copper containers
with stones and burnt and carbonized cannabis seeds inside them. While the Pazyryk
tombs are far from the Caspian, the similarity of their artifacts to Herodotus’s accounts
is enough to lead to the conclusion that he got it right. But as Clarke and Merlin point
out, the writings of Herodotus do not imply that the Scythians were smoking cannabis
flowers the way we do today. The material being smoked was instead the seeds—
although it does appear that this way of smoking cannabis was somewhat if not strongly
intoxicating.
Psychoactive cannabis use moved quickly across Europe and into the Middle East.
A 2020 analysis of resin on ceremonial altars at the Judahite Shrine of Arad