A 17th-century crypt in Milan has yielded the first archaeological evidence of cannabis's psychoactive components in human bones. This is evident from skeletal remains that were buried under a hospital.
“Molecules from medicinal plants can be detected through toxicological analysis even centuries after the death of an individual,” says Gaia Giordano of the University of Milan in Italy.
Ancient cannabis bones
She and her colleagues discovered molecules of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) – the psychoactive components of cannabis – in the thigh bones of a young man and middle-aged woman buried between 1638 and 1697. Giordano and her colleagues extracted bone samples from the remains of nine people. The individuals were buried in a crypt of Milan's Ca' Granda Hospital in the 17th century, and the researchers confirmed this using radiocarbon dating.
They then performed toxicological analyzes by powdering and preparing the bone samples so that individual chemical compounds could be separated and purified in a liquid solution. This allowed them to use mass spectrometry to identify the chemical components.
The researchers found no mention of cannabis in the medical records of the Ca' Granda hospital. Giordano says that people may have self-medicated or used cannabis recreationally.
The study is unique because this toxicological method is used to analyze human remains at an archaeological site, said Yimin Yang of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. “I think their research will open a new window for research into ancient cannabis use,” he says.
Yang's own research has previously found chemical traces of cannabis on wooden braziers in tombs dating back 2500 years. And cannabis has an even longer history of becoming humanity's favorite plant species, starting with its domestication about 12.000 years ago. Meanwhile, Giordano and her colleagues are expanding their toxicology search to other substances, such as cocaine, in human remains.
Source: newsscientist.com (EN)
