December 2, 2008
"Oldest stash"
Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.From the Canadian Press.The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.
The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.
Posted by David on December 2, 2008 9:36 PM
As best I have been able to determine through a modest amount of research, the technology of smoking (pipe or cigar) was diffused from the New World to the Old in the 16th century, rather than being independently invented in multiple places.
If so, that explains why the man had no pipe. He could have eaten his cannabis or burnt it on a brazier, of course.
Posted by: Chas S. Clifton on December 4, 2008 10:47 PM
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