A world of
evidence.

A 2021 study reconstructed early cannabis domestication in East Asia, approximately 12,000 years ago.

Reading the reference. This is a model-based estimate with substantial uncertainty. It is not a directly dated find or a record of medicinal use.

Approximate model date; regional marker only.

Researchers dated cannabis fruits from an early Jōmon site to approximately 10,000 calibrated years BP.

Reading the reference. Strong evidence for the plant’s presence. Cultivation and use are possibilities discussed by the authors; neither intoxication nor medical use follows from the remains alone.

Calibrated BP counts back from 1950; BCE conversion rounded.

Chemical analysis identified cannabinoids in residues on the smaller of two altars at a Judahite shrine. The researchers interpreted the find as cannabis burned in ritual activity.

Reading the reference. Physical evidence at one shrine. It does not identify the plant meant by a biblical word, or establish the ingredients of anointing oil.

Century-level archaeological date.

Explore the biblical references ↓

A team including Ethan Russo analysed plant material from a burial reported as approximately 2,700 years old. Botanical, chemical and genetic work identified cannabis.

Reading the reference. The cache establishes a deliberate burial association. Its precise use and the deceased person’s role remain interpretations; no smoking apparatus was needed to establish plant identity.

Rounded date from the age reported in the study.

Researchers found cannabis-related residues in wooden braziers from a high-altitude cemetery.

Reading the reference. The find supports ritual burning in this burial setting. It does not establish universal practice or a medicinal purpose.

Archaeological context: approximately 2,500 years ago.

Read the China feature ↗

In Histories 4.74–75, Herodotus describes hemp, clothing made from it, and a Scythian practice involving heated stones and vapour.

Reading the reference. A valuable ancient written account, not a modern chemical test. The map locates the broad region discussed; it does not mark a specific excavated event.

Approximate period of the text; regional locator.

The Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing records cannabis within an early Chinese medical tradition. Brand and Zhao’s textual study traces its treatment in later works.

Reading the reference. The text’s historical date differs from the legendary age of the Divine Farmer. Plant names and parts can be ambiguous; a historical indication is not proof of efficacy.

Date of the textual tradition, not a surviving first-edition manuscript.

Nikolaas van der Merwe reported positive tests for cannabis-derived compounds in two excavated pipe bowls, associated with a date reported as 1320 ± 80 CE.

Reading the reference. An important early analytical report, using thin-layer chromatography. Retain its reported dating and method; it should not be described as equivalent to a new mass-spectrometry reanalysis.

Regional locator in historical Begemder; not the famous rock-hewn church complex.

Read the author’s abstract in the OFDT catalogue ↗

Henry VIII’s statute, 24 Hen. VIII c. 4, required a quarter-acre of flax or hemp for each sixty acres of land suitable for tillage.

Reading the reference. This was a specific agricultural requirement, not an instruction that everyone in Britain grow cannabis. The act is commonly catalogued under the parliamentary year 1532; royal assent was in 1533.

Historical law; not current legal guidance.

Archival historical research follows Chilean hemp cultivation and its supply to shipping and markets connected with the Viceroyalty of Peru.

Reading the reference. A history of fibre, labour and imperial commerce. The period shown is the study’s coverage, not a claim that cultivation first began in 1577.

Period studied; regional locator. The often-repeated 1545 “first” needs separate scrutiny.

A 2023 study reported cannabinoids in femoral-bone samples from seventeenth-century remains associated with Milan’s Ca’ Granda hospital.

Reading the reference. The route and reason for exposure cannot be settled from the detection alone. The authors considered recreational use but also alternatives including self-medication and other exposure.

Century-level burial context, not a precisely dated dose.

The assembly meeting of July–August 1619 passed measures encouraging hemp, flax and other crops.

Reading the reference. Evidence of colonial agricultural policy. A cultivation measure tells us about economic intentions; it does not establish medicinal or intoxicating use.

Assembly dates: 30 July–4 August 1619.

View the digitised proceedings ↗

The Sydney Gazette described Andrew Thompson’s cultivation of hemp from English seed and the expansion of his planting.

Reading the reference. A contemporary colonial agricultural report, accessed through a later transcription with a link to the original newspaper. It is not evidence of pre-colonial Aboriginal cannabis use.

Date of publication; original scan not independently inspected in this edition.

Original newspaper record at Trove ↗

William Brooke O’Shaughnessy published observations on Indian hemp, drawing on existing local knowledge and his own experiments and case reports.

Reading the reference. A significant medical publication, not the beginning of cannabis medicine. Its reports predate modern controlled trials and retain the limitations of their time.

Original publication date.

Read the full feature ↗

Yechiel Gaoni and Raphael Mechoulam reported the isolation and structural work on the principal active constituent of hashish.

Reading the reference. A laboratory milestone. Identifying a compound is a different achievement from demonstrating that it treats a disease.

Publication date.

Read the Mechoulam feature ↗

Cunha, Carlini, Mechoulam and collaborators published a small study of cannabidiol in patients with epilepsy who continued their existing medicines.

Reading the reference. An early clinical signal, with a small sample. It should not be retold as a proven cure or generalised beyond the patients and treatment studied.

Publication date, not necessarily the date patients began treatment.

Read the research context ↗