Thanks to weed, ‘stoned age’ followed the ice age

Abstract

It must have been something in the air. Some 11,000 years ago, humans in Europe and Asia began using a new plant--cannabis. An archaeological study suggests that different groups of people across Eurasia began using the plant independently at the end of the last ice age--perhaps for its psychoactive properties, as a source of food or medicine, or even to make textiles from its fibres.