Brief History of Hemp
Traveling back to the end of the first ice age, archaeological studies have concluded that the source plant for the CBD compound, Cannabis Sativa, was most likely one of the first crops planted by ancient man. Carl Sagan* seemed to think that Hemp may have actually been the world’s first agricultural crop, and led to the development of the civilized world. Hemp was harvested by the Chinese 8,500 years ago (Schultes and Hofmann 1980). Throughout history, Cannabis Sativa has been a versatile fiber source used for paper and cloth. It was also used for medicinal applications, and to a limited extent, utilized as an oilseed crop. Seeds and Cannabis oil were found to have been a food source in China as early as 6,000 BCE. Two thousand years later, in 4,000 BCE, evidence of textiles made from Hemp (Cannabis) was found in both China and Turkestan. This ancient source of textile fiber was introduced to western Asia and Egypt, and was to show up in Northern Europe somewhere between 1000 BCE and 2000 BCE.Hemp was the first plant known to have been domestically cultivated. The oldest relic of human history is hemp fabric dated to 8,000 BC from ancient Mesopotamia, an area in present-day Turkey.