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"Scientists Find Ancient Humans Used Weed 2,500 Years Ago, Too"
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Zariadris
Zariadris
286 posts

Edited Jun 15, 2019, 07:28
"Scientists Find Ancient Humans Used Weed 2,500 Years Ago, Too"
Jun 15, 2019, 07:03
The Arch Drude was really onto something when he sang "They Were on Hard Drugs".

This breaking news from the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/health/cannabis-anicent-dead-marijuana.html?action=click&module=Discovery&pgtype=Homepage

Highlights:

“The fact that strongly psychoactive ancient residue has been documented in laboratory testing is the key new finding,” said Dr. Merlin, a cannabis historian. He hypothesized that “It was used to facilitate the body communicating with the afterlife, the spirit world.”

...

“We can start to piece together an image of funerary rites that included flames, rhythmic music and hallucinogen smoke, all intended to guide people into an altered state of mind,” the authors wrote in the study.

'Ancient mourners apparently created the smoke by placing hot stones in wooden braziers — receptacles for flaming objects — and laying in cannabis plants, the researchers wrote.

...

At yet another grave, also about 2,400 to 2,800 years old, in the dry desert of Xinjiang, researchers recently discovered a man about six feet tall buried with “13 cannabis plants gathered at their base and spread across his breast like a bouquet of roses,” Dr. Merlin said. The array has also been described as a “cannabis shroud.”

“I think the evidence from the Pamir site connects cannabis as a ‘plant of the gods,’ ” he said. “And that people recognized for it to be effective, you had to cook or burn it.”

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