Many botanists believe that the cannabis sativa plant was first domesticated in Central Asia. But a new study published on Friday in the journal Science Advances suggests that East Asia is the more likely source, and that all existing strains of the plant come from an “ancestral gene pool” represented by wild and cultivated varieties growing in China today.
The study’s authors found that the plant was a “primarily multipurpose crop” grown about 12,000 years ago during the early Neolithic period, probably for fiber and medicinal uses.
Farmers began breeding the plant specifically for its mind-altering properties about 4,000 years ago, as cannabis began to spread into Europe and the Middle East, the authors of the study said.
Michael Purugganan, a professor of biology at New York University who read the study, said the usual assumption about early humans was that they domesticated plants for food.
“That seems to be the most pressing problem for humans then: How to get food,” said Professor Purugganan, who was not involved in the research. “The suggestion that even early on they were also very concerned with fiber and even intoxicants is interesting. It would bring to question what were the priorities of these Neolithic societies.”
Indeed. Yes, we need to feed our bellies, but we also need to feed the soul. Of course, is the bellies are starved, pretty soon the soul won’t matter. But just how did our ancestors make those calculations? Take a look at this post from a couple years ago: Personality, understanding, and anxiety as the driver of cultural evolution [Tech Evol]. If smoking weed reduces anxiety, that’s a good reason to cultivate it.
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