The beginnings of cannabis cultivation remained a mystery to researchers for lack of data on the subject.
A team of American, British, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Qatari and Swiss scientists looked into the question.
She analyzed genomes of plants from all over the world.
The surprising result of his study was published Friday July 16 in the journal
Science Advances
.
The first traces in East Asia
To do this, the researchers compiled 110 entire genomes spanning the entire spectrum of cannabis from wild plants, to historic cultivars, to modern hybrids used for hemp and drugs.
"Our genomic dating suggests that the earliest domesticated ancestors of the hemp and drug types diverged from basal cannabis" about 12,000 years ago, "indicating that the species had already been domesticated by the early Neolithic," according to this. study.
“Contrary to a widely accepted opinion, which associates cannabis with a center of crop domestication in Central Asia, our results are consistent with a single origin of domestication of cannabis sativa in East Asia, consistent with early archaeological evidence “, Also say the authors.
Multiple uses
Cannabis has been used for millennia for textiles as well as for its medicinal and psychotropic properties.
The evolution of the cannabis genome suggests that the plant has been cultivated for multiple purposes for several millennia, according to the same study.
Current varieties of hemp and drugs will come from selective crops initiated around 4,000 years ago, optimized for the production of fiber or cannabinoids.
Breeding resulted in tall, unbranched hemp plants with more fiber in the main stem, and short, well-branched marijuana plants with more flowers, maximizing resin production.
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