A burial mound in the Tuva region of southern Siberia has produced what researchers are calling the oldest direct evidence that humans deliberately got high on cannabis, according to a study published in the journal Science in early November. The site, a kurgan known as Tunnug 1, belonged to an early Scythian-era culture of horse-riding steppe nomads roughly 2,800 years ago.
Excavators recovered more than a thousand cannabis seeds from the tomb, which they radiocarbon-dated directly rather than relying on the age of surrounding material, according to coverage of the findings by Popular Science. The more striking evidence came from strands of preserved human hair recovered at the site, which carried chemical traces of THC and CBN — compounds produced when cannabis is consumed, not simply handled or burned nearby. That distinction is what researchers say sets this find apart from earlier cannabis-related archaeological discoveries, which mostly documented the plant's presence through burnt seeds in ritual braziers rather than proof that people had actually ingested or inhaled it.
A find that isn't going unchallenged
The tomb's occupants appear to have been high-status members of Scythian society, part of a broader nomadic culture that dominated the Eurasian steppe and is independently known to have used cannabis in funerary rites, a practice described by the Greek historian Herodotus centuries later. But not every specialist is convinced the hair evidence proves what the study's authors claim. One toxicologist quoted in coverage of the paper argued the hair analysis — the component carrying the study's central claim — falls short of what rigorous testing would require, raising the possibility of contamination from the burial environment itself. Another archaeologist countered that using hair toxicology to detect ancient psychoactive substance use is an established technique, not a novel or unreliable one, according to reporting on the dispute.
Researchers on the project say they are now sequencing ancient DNA extracted from the seeds themselves, work intended to determine whether the plants were wild-gathered or already being cultivated, and to help trace how cannabis use spread across the Eurasian steppe in the centuries that followed. It also remains unclear from the current evidence whether the Scythians at Tunnug 1 used cannabis only during funeral rites, as the seed deposits might suggest, or whether intoxication was a more routine part of life — a question the team says will need further excavation and chemical analysis of other sites to answer.