ABOVE: A wooden brazier at the excavation site
XINHUA WU
A chemical analysis of ancient pots found in China shows they contain cannabis residue, scientists report in a study published in Science Advances today (June 12). The wooden braziers with charred stones are from the Jirzankal Cemetery in the plateaus of northwestern China and date back about 2,500 years. They are thought to have been used during burial ceremonies and may represent some of the earliest evidence of ritualistic smoking or burning of cannabis.
The authors extracted organic material from the wooden brazier fragments and burned stones and analyzed it with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. They report the presence of cannabinol (CBN) in the internal charred layer of one of the wooden pots. The psychoactive component in cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which decomposes and oxidizes into CBN when exposed to air, the authors write in their study.
Cannabis was used as an ...
