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Journal of Experimental Botany 2008 59(15):4171-4182; doi:10.1093/jxb/ern260
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© 2008 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)

RESEARCH PAPER

Phytochemical and genetic analyses of ancient cannabis from Central Asia

Ethan B. Russo1,2,3,*, Hong-En Jiang4,5, Xiao Li5, Alan Sutton2, Andrea Carboni6, Francesca del Bianco6, Giuseppe Mandolino6, David J. Potter2, You-Xing Zhao7, Subir Bera8, Yong-Bing Zhang5, En-Guo Lü9, David K. Ferguson10, Francis Hueber11, Liang-Cheng Zhao12, Chang-Jiang Liu4, Yu-Fei Wang4 and Cheng-Sen Li5,13,*

1Visiting Professor, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, erusso@gwpharm.com
2GW Pharmaceuticals, Porton Down Science Park, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP4 OJQ, UK
3Faculty Affiliate, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA
4Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China
5Bureau of Cultural Relics of Turpan Prefecture, Turpan 838000, Xinjiang, China
6CRA-Centro di Recerca per le Colture Industriali, via di Corticella 133, 40128, Bologna, Italy
7State Key Laboratory of Phytochemistry and Plant Resources in West China, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650204, China
8Department of Botany, University of Calcutta, Kolkata 700019, India
9Xinjiang Institute of Archaeology, 4-5 South Beijing Road, Ürümqi, Xinjiang 830011, China
10Institute of Palaeontology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
11Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institutions, Washington, DC 20560-0121, USA
12College of Biological Science and Biotechnology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
13Beijing Museum of Natural History, Beijing 100050, China

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: lics{at}ibcas.ac.cn; erusso{at}gwpharm.com

The Yanghai Tombs near Turpan, Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region, China have recently been excavated to reveal the 2700-year-old grave of a Caucasoid shaman whose accoutrements included a large cache of cannabis, superbly preserved by climatic and burial conditions. A multidisciplinary international team demonstrated through botanical examination, phytochemical investigation, and genetic deoxyribonucleic acid analysis by polymerase chain reaction that this material contained tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of cannabis, its oxidative degradation product, cannabinol, other metabolites, and its synthetic enzyme, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid synthase, as well as a novel genetic variant with two single nucleotide polymorphisms. The cannabis was presumably employed by this culture as a medicinal or psychoactive agent, or an aid to divination. To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent, and contribute to the medical and archaeological record of this pre-Silk Road culture.

Key words: Archaeology, botany, cannabis, cannabinoids, archaeobotany, ethnopharmacology, genetics, medical history, phytochemistry

Received 7 August 2008; Revised 24 September 2008 Accepted 25 September 2008


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