The Ancient Cultivation of Hemp

Abstract

The discovery in a long pollen diagram from East Anglia of a substantial curve for a pollen-grain referable to Cannabis sativa , L., the Indian hemp, raised the hope that we might, through palynology, have the means of tracing the history of cultivation of this important and sinister economic plant in England and in Western Europe. It was clearly essential that pollen-analytic evidence should be related fully to existing historical and archaeological knowledge, and aided by a notice in this journal (ANTIQUITY, 1964, 287), and by the notable kindness of a great many academic colleagues, I have put together a condensed historical account of the plant in antiquity as preface to a description of the pollen-analytic data.