The cannabis trade boomed in the Bronze Age. INDO-EUROPEANS. The Yamna, horsemen from the steppes and one of the four founding tribes of modern Europeans, were probably the first major cannabis dealers in prehistoric times, German researchers believe. These men of the ancient bronze age (and whose culture radiated between 5,500 BC and 4,300 BC), did not content themselves with spreading the Indo-European languages , nor to spread their genes by mixing with all the populations of farmers encountered:they would also have spread hemp and perhaps its psychoactive use throughout Europe and Asia, estimate Tengwen Long and Pavel Tarasov, of l 'Free University of Berlin, in the journal Vegetation History and Archeobotany.
A cash crop?
To piece together the complex history of the spread of this plant that may have originated in the foothills of the Himalayas, researchers have re-examined pollens, fibers and fruits discovered in dozens of archaeological digs or pottery over the past few years. decades. Traces of use and domestication of hemp from 11,500 and 10,000 years BC. have been found in Japan, China and Eastern Europe, but the consumption of this plant really exploded 7000 years ago, during the Bronze Age, they note. Archaeologists link this increased usage in East Asia and Europe with the rise of transcontinental trade. Because in the meantime, about 9000 years ago, the Yamna shepherds domesticated the horse, mastered horse riding and acquired a new mobility. “It allowed them to cover great distances , believes Pavel Tarasov. They thus began to forge transcontinental trade networks, following the same routes that would become the famous Silk Roads a few millennia later . ” The traffic hub seems to be the Hexi Corridor, which opens the doors to East Asia for them. The Yamna, first mainly located north of the Black Sea, spread widely to the west, but also introduced throughout Central Asia, then in Mongolia and China. “The high value of cannabis made it an ideal voucher at the time – a sort of ‘cash crop’ before money, says Tegwen Long,even if this hypothesis requires more proof. » Cannabis is a valuable plant with many uses, for cooking, medicine, making ropes and fabrics. But since when has it been used as a psychotropic? In Central Asia and Romania, burnt fruits and traces of smoked cannabis have been found dating back approximately 7000 years. Archaeologists believe that the Yamna were among the first to inhale the fumes during ritual ceremonies, before sharing this use with their "clients" throughout Eurasia.