History8,000 B.C.E. - 1 C.E.The earliest record of man's use of Cannabis comes from the island of Taiwan located off the coast of mainland China. In this densely populated part of the world, archaeologists have unearthed an ancient village site dating back to 8,000 B.C.E which contained the remains of a prehistoric community whose pottery was made with wet clay and hemp. These simple pots, with their patterns of twisted fiber embedded in their sides, suggest that men have been using the marijuana plant in some manner since the dawn of history.
Archeological records shows that China was the earliest region to discover the agricultural benefits of hemp. From the time of the earliest primitive societies during the Neolithic era, about 4,000 B.C.E., the ancient Chinese domesticated hemp from a wild plant into a cultivated crop; as they would similarly do with millet, wheat, beans, and rice later. General descriptions of the experience and agricultural cultivation practice were recorded in the book of Si Shengzhi, approximately one century B.C.E.; and the scenario of the hemp farming and retting were depicted as early as XiZhou Dynasty (11-7 century B.C.E.).
By the 3rd millennium B.C.E., the hemp plant was known throughout Egypt where the fibers were used for rope. The ancient Egyptian word for hemp (smsm t) occurs in the Pyramid Texts in connection with rope making. Pieces of hempen material were found in the tomb of Pharaoh Akhenaten at el-Amarna, and the pollen of the mummy of Ramses (ca. 1200 B.C.E.) has been identified as Cannabis. Hemp was used in the construction of the pyramids, not only to pull blocks of limestone, but also in quarries, where the dried fiber was pounded into cracks in the rock, then wetted. As the fiber swelled, the rock broke.
Ancient documents of hemp cultivation and use in Europe are scarce, but luckily the Greek historian, Herodotus (450 B.C.E), wrote of the Scythians bringing hemp to Europe from Asia during their westward migration around 1500 B.C.E. He wrote,"Now, they have hemp growing in that country that is very like flax, except that it is thicker and taller. This plant grows both wild and under cultivation, and from it the Thracians make garments very like linen. Unless someone is very expert, he could not tell the garment made of linen from the hempen one. Someone who has never seen hemp would certainly judge the garment to be linen.”