The Hazy Evolution of Cannabis

About 2,200 years ago, in a cemetery high in the mountains of what is now western China, a group of people gathered for a funeral ritual, placing hot stones inside tin wooden containers scattered around the room. and then they placed leaves on top of the stones as the leaves began. To burn, they filled the enclosed space with a haze of smoke, and as the funeral-goers inhaled, they found their minds being transported to a peculiar new state. Thousands of years later, when archaeologists analyzed the charred plant remains, they realized they had stumbled upon the oldest known example. of people who smoke a plant that over 100 million still consume in the same way today,

cannabis

, but how did such a strange plant arise, when and where did we first domesticate it and why, oh why what drugs us?

Well, the plant that manages to mysteriously hack into a biological system shared by almost all animals has come under some attacks. The history of

cannabis

Evolution began about 420 million years ago. Just kidding, can you actually imagine that the origin of cannabis in deep time had been very confusing for a long time thanks to the fact that fossil traces of its distinctive leaves are extremely rare, only two are known, but in the In recent years, analysis of specific DNA markers and studies of fossil pollen have suggested that the genus began about 28 million years ago in the mid-Alosine era high on the Tibetan Plateau, this is when it diverged from its sister genus. humulus, which contains species commonly known as hops, a key ingredient for beer, that family gathering needs to be lit and the formation of the Tibetan Plateau may actually have been a key factor.

Behind the origin of the plant itself, we see that cannabis thrives in what are known as tiered environments, open and treeless habitats, and when India collided with Asia about 35 million years ago forming the Tibetan plateau, it caused that type of tiered environments will be developed throughout the region. It set the stage for cannabis to emerge and flourish, so in a sense, plate tectonics gave us weed after its lofty origins on the Tibetan Plateau. The plant slowly spread throughout the East and West and its first traces of fil appeared in Europe about 6 million years ago and in eastern China.

Around 1.2 million years ago, when humans arrived, more than a million years later, cannabis was already an ancient feature of many parts of Eurasia, but it was not exactly like the cannabis we know today, which has been molded by thousands of years. From human cultivation and artificial selection exactly how and when our relationship with this strange plant began and how much we changed it over time has been a mystery for a few key reasons, one of which is that we have been unable to find any living population of the wild ancestor, If it still exists, surely there are many places where cannabis grows in the wild today, but all of those plants appear to be escaped strains that were once domesticated, making them wild rather than truly wild, in fact, plants tend to disappear.

Wild and growing in the wild is where it got the nickname weed, plus considering its use has been taboo in many cultures, much of cannabis cultivation has historically been done in secret and samples are often difficult to collect legally. , making its domestication history difficult to further reconstruct. We humans have found multiple uses for cannabis, people not only grow it for its psychoactive properties but also use some strains for its hemp fibers and oils; In fact, for a long time, Tonomous could not agree on how many species of cannabis exist today. However, current scientific opinion is that there is only one Cannabis sativa containing a variety of different cultivated lineages for all those reasons, and tracing the details of the history of people who used marijuana using conventional methods proved extremely complicated, but in 2021 Researchers published a new study.

Using methods that only recently became available, genome sequencing, they reconstructed the history of cannabis domestication by comparing the genomes of 110 plants from around the world, including wild and cultivated lineages for both hemp and drugs, and noting genetic differences between the plants. and using molecular dating to work backwards, they were able to identify a single origin of cannabis domestication in what is now China about 12,000 years ago, making cannabis one of the oldest known plants that we domesticated right at the dawn of the agricultural r

evolution

. It means that cannabis was domesticated before the priorities of commodities such as wheat, corn and potatoes.

Genomic analysis also suggested that early domesticated cannabis was probably first used as a multipurpose crop, with the hemp and drug-type lineages only genetically separating from each other around 4,000 years ago. That's when people began deliberately breeding different lineages for two different purposes, leaving a strong signal of divergent selection in the genomes of each type. The researchers were even able to identify signals of selection in specific genes responsible for the characteristic differences between the two types, such as the genes responsible for the taller, unbranched stems with higher fiber content of hemp-type cannabis and, Conversely, the genes behind the shorter branching stems of drug-type cannabis with woodier cores, more flowers and greater resin production after these two types of cannabis diverged about 4,000 years ago.

We are beginning to find clear archaeological evidence of people consuming both types throughout EUR Asia and beyond. Multiple hemp-type cannabis fiber artifacts appear in East Asia around this time and spread westward toward Europe and the Middle East. The first clear evidence of people using drug-type cannabis. to get high comes from that mountain cemetery in western China 25,200 years ago, which researchers reported in 2019 and written evidence from India indicates that people used cannabis as a drug as early as 2,000 years ago and reached Africa in the 13th century and in Latin America in the 16th century it is clearly a plant with which humans have had a very long history, but despite being able to discover how and when we domesticated it, why it places us in the first place, remains quite mysterious.

Is it just an accidental corking of biochemistry or some sort of adaptive

evolution

ary strategy on the part of the plant itself, and if so, what might that strategy originally have been like? Surely the plant doesn't want to be burned, inhaled, or baked into brownies by some kind of bipu. To delve deeper into that question, we must first look at exactly how cannabis gets us high. First, look at the main molecule that cannabis produces that is responsible for its psychoactive effects. It is called tetrahydrocannabinol or THC and it is just one of many chemicals. that produces cannabis.

It produces what has led it to be described as the plant of a thousand and one molecules. Studies have shown that some of them have antimicrobial and antifungal properties that help defend the plant against diseases, others appear to act as a natural sunscreen protecting the plant from exposure to dangerous levels of ultraviolet radiation at high altitudes, which has a lot of sense since its original alosine habitat was on the Tibetan plateau, where UV exposure is especially high. Additionally, there is also evidence that these molecules help deter some insect pests and greasy herbivores thanks to their unpleasant taste and disorienting effects, but we still don't fully understand the full ecological context that led cannabis to become such a prolific chemical.

However, we can say that some of those molecules like THC have the right way to bind. specific receptors in our bodies that are involved in what is called the endocannabinoid system. This is an ancient cell signaling network found in almost all animals, from us primates to sea urchins, possibly dating back 600 million years and the system uses a class of molecules produced. by the body called endocannabinoids, many of them are similar to those produced by cannabis and regulate a wide range of important biological functions, including appetite, sleep, mood, learning, memory, metabolism and various aspects of general growth and development, meaning that animals had been producing and using cannaboid molecules for hundreds of millions of years before plants like cannabis independently developed their own versions and these versions like THC mimic our own internally produced cannaboids, bind to the same receptors and influence many of the functions we just mentioned, resulting in the characteristic effect that cannabis provides its users, so while the plant originally produced these molecules For a variety of defensive functions, we humans find their effects intriguing and for thousands of years, through a process of careful and sometimes clandestine selection, we have been further refining those effects by doing what they were intended.

Being an increasingly attractive deterrent due to its ability to hack an ancient animal cell signaling system, cannabis became a favorite of many primitive cultures and taboo in many modern ones, whatever your opinion of its use. Current use, cannabis is a plant that humans have been growing for longer than almost any other and one that we have been actively changing for 12,000 years counting because of how it changes us eons it is a complex production and if you like our channel, We have many more things to share with you. For example, we recently published a half-hour special on the strange future of telescopes on Siow that you should check out if you're curious about what's out there.

Scientists and engineers are building telescopes that span multiple continental continents and brainstorming far-flung concepts like using craters on the moon as dishes for giant radio telescopes, all in the hopes of seeing a little more of the cosmos. With these devices, we can learn more about the beginning of our universe and if we have company in it. It's an excellent video. Check it out at the link in the description now Canabis is a flowering plant and before this group appeared there were no flowers so watch our episode of when the first flower bloomed to find out when the plants became a little more colorful and it's also the first episode I presented. years ago and high praise for this month's eonist Jake Hart rafhael hassa Annie and Eric Higgins John Davidson ing Melanie lamb carnavale Addie Tony Dy and Juan M, you can become an eonite and help us make the show on patreon.com and as always, thanks for joining me at Adam L Studio, subscribe on youtube.com/eons for more epic eras.

The history of cannabis. Evolution began about 420 million years ago. Just kidding, can you imagine that the first time I read that line I didn't get the joke? part and I was like no way no oh yeah no no way that's a joke oh that's brilliant oh you're going to have to cut out so many giggles Chris I've been trying to hold them to give you like three seconds that's just more oh boy