Earliest Direct Evidence of Humans Getting High on Cannabis Found in Siberian Tomb from 2,800 Years Ago

Ancient hair reveals cannabis use centuries earlier than previously documented, possibly during elaborate burial rituals.

Getting high is hardly a modern habit.

Nearly 2,800 years ago, people on the Siberian steppe may have been using cannabis in elaborate funeral ceremonies involving sacrificed horses and possibly even human offerings.

Now, scientists have found what they believe is the oldest direct evidence of humans using cannabis for its mind-altering effects.

Researchers discovered chemical traces associated with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in human hair recovered from a monumental burial mound in southern Siberia. Combined with nearly 1,500 cannabis seeds and fragments found nearby, the evidence suggests that psychoactive cannabis use was already established centuries earlier than previously demonstrated.

However, for these people, cannabis may have been less about recreation and more about death, spirituality, and ritual.

A Royal Tomb Full of Cannabis

The discovery was made at Tunnug 1, a sprawling burial mound in the Uyuk Valley, sometimes called Siberia’s Valley of the Kings.

Built around the beginning of the eighth century BCE, the monument belongs to the earliest period of Scythian culture. The Scythians were renowned horse-riding peoples who eventually dominated enormous stretches of the Eurasian steppe.

Excavations uncovered wooden burial chambers, log coffins, and numerous horse remains. Archaeologists also found hundreds of tiny cannabis seeds scattered around several burials. Radiocarbon dating placed the seeds’ deposition around 2,800 years ago.

×

Get smarter every day...

Stay ahead with ZME Science and subscribe.

Daily Newsletter
The science you need to know, every weekday.

Weekly Newsletter
A week in science, all in one place. Sends every Sunday.
No spam, ever. Unsubscribe anytime. Review our Privacy Policy.

Thank you! One more thing...

Please check your inbox and confirm your subscription.

“The seeds show that cannabis played an important role in the rituals surrounding the burial,” Gino Caspari, an archaeologist at the University of Bern and the study’s lead author, said in a university statement.

But the cannabis seeds alone, indicative as they may be, cannot show that consumption took place primarily for the plant’s psychoactive effects. Ancient people also cultivated the plant for its nutritious seeds and useful fibers.

The breakthrough came when archaeologists recovered remarkably well-preserved human hair from the burial chambers.

“One does not very often get to drug test a person who has been dead for nearly 3,000 years,” Caspari told The Washington Post. “That’s even unusual for an archaeologist.”

Using a sophisticated chemical technique called mass spectrometry, researchers detected cannabinol (CBN) in every hair sample they analyzed. CBN forms when THC, the compound primarily responsible for cannabis’s intoxicating effects, breaks down through oxidation. They also detected weaker chemical signatures consistent with THC itself.

Finding both cannabis remains and cannabinoids in human hair provides unusually compelling evidence of ancient exposure to the drug.

But why would cannabis accompany the dead?

Were Ancient People Using Cannabis During Human Sacrifices?

Tunnug 1 was no ordinary cemetery.

In a 2024 archaeological study, researchers documented the remains of at least 18 horses and one human associated with elaborate sacrificial deposits. Subsequent excavations revealed additional horse remains and scattered human bones.

The researchers suspect that some ceremonies may have involved human sacrifice, although definitive evidence remains elusive.

That raises a disturbing possibility: Could cannabis have been administered to people before they were killed?

RelatedPosts

Of pain and marijuana
Young Americans are drinking less, but they’re using weed and prescription drugs more than ever before
One in ten heavy cannabis users who quit experience withdrawal symptoms
Siberia will lose all its tundra by the year 2500 unless emissions are curtailed fast

Caspari suggested in his Washington Post interview that cannabis might have helped sedate sacrificial victims. But there is no direct evidence that this happened.

Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia who was not involved in the study, was more restrained.

“The suggestion that cannabis may have been used to calm individuals selected for ritual sacrifice is intriguing, but remains highly speculative,” he told New Scientist.

Cannabis could have also served as ceremonial incense, helped mask the smell of decomposing bodies, or played a role in religious experiences surrounding death.

But the broader association between cannabis and Scythian rituals has a surprisingly long history.

The Ancient Greeks Wrote About Scythians Getting High

Around the fifth century BCE, Greek historian Herodotus described an extraordinary Scythian custom.

After funerals, participants reportedly crawled beneath felt coverings and threw cannabis onto red-hot stones, filling the enclosed spaces with thick vapor. According to Herodotus’s account, the Scythians howled with delight as they inhaled the fumes.

For centuries, historians debated how literally to interpret such descriptions.

Then, in 2019, researchers found chemical evidence of cannabis burning in wooden braziers at the Jirzankal Cemetery in western China. Dating back about 2,500 years, these discoveries suggested that cannabis was inhaled during funerary ceremonies.

The new Siberian discovery pushes that archaeological timeline back roughly 300 years. Unlike Jirzankal, where cannabinoids survived on objects, Tunnug 1 also preserves traces in human hair.

Still, not everyone agrees that the hair proves intentional consumption.

Volker Auwärter, a forensic toxicologist at the University Medical Center Freiburg, told the Associated Press that the analysis “is scientifically weak.” He argued that cannabinoids could have contaminated the hair externally, without anyone consuming the plant.

Elisa Guerra Doce, an archaeologist at the University of Valladolid, disagreed. She also told AP the findings indicate that “cannabis was not merely deposited as a funerary offering but was actually consumed by individuals associated with the burial rite.”

What’s clearer is that the psychoactive properties were probably familiar to communities in Central Asia much earlier than previously confirmed. By the time Herodotus described Scythians inhaling cannabis fumes centuries later, the practice may already have had a long history.

The study was published in the journal Science.