5,000 years before chancy dealer on street corners and dispensaries , the Yamnaya people might have been the world ’s first green goddess trader , according to a young study into the archeology and history of marijuana .

Researchers from the German Archaeological Institute and the Free University of Berlin look at archaeological and environmental phonograph record of cannabis fibers and pollen across Europe and East Asia . Their interpretation of this analysis revealed the controversial title that marijuana was not first domesticated in China or Central Asia .

They actually discovered that cannabis was being used across Europe and East Asia sometime between 11,500 and 10,200 years ago . However , according to this study , it was not widely traded until the   Yamnaya nomad stepped onto the scene some 5,000 years ago .

The Yamnaya migrate into central Europe from the noble-minded ridgeline of the eastern Steppe part near modern - day Ukraine and Russia . These nomadic people had many uses for cannabis , from using hemp fibers to make rope and textiles to its medicinal dimension , and , of course of study , getting high . There were also torrid monger , believe to have establish a transcontinental barter road stretching the length of Europe to East Asia and across and over the Steppe .

Around the fourth dimension they were trade in , there appeared to be a gold rush in marijuana in East Asia around 5,000 years ago , at the outset of the Bronze Age , which the researchers do not believe was a conjunction . Their analytic thinking seems to point to the theory that the Yamnaya ’s trade empire need a comely amount of hemp that descend across from Europe to Asia , Discovery Newsreports .

" Cannabis ’s multiple usability might have made it an idealistic campaigner for being a ' hard currency harvest before cash ' , a industrial plant that is train chiefly for rally purpose , " Tengwen Long , one of the researcher , toldDiscovery tidings .

However , the researchers added that this was not the only good these ancient people traded . The majority of their swap also seems to have admit bronze objects , millet , wheat , barley , and horse . With these interaction , they also had significant cultural exchange , where they transfer attainment , Indo - European language , and pandemic disease .

Main image credit : Katheirne Hitt / Flickr(CC BY - ND 2.0 )