Archaeologists have uncovered a Roman pot containing a set of mysterious seeds that may be from the cannabis plant.
The pot was unearthed during excavations conducted at the site of an energy-generating facility between Saltholme Nature Reserve and the village of Cowpen Bewley in the district of Stockton-on-Tees, northeastern England.
The site preserves remains from Britain's Roman period—which lasted from A.D. 43 to A.D. 410—including evidence of settlement and agricultural activity.
The excavations, conducted by Green Man Archaeology, took place during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020-2021, but the backlog of post-dig laboratory work is only just coming to an end.
This lab work involves sorting and cleaning artifacts that have been found, as well as sending finds to specialists for assessment.
Among the most intriguing finds was a battered and burnt beaker identified as having originated from the valley of the River Nene, which runs through eastern England. Inside, the vessel contained a number of seeds that resembled those of the cannabis plant.
The beaker was not washed along with the other pottery sherds found at the site and was immediately sent to a lab to see if the seeds could be positively identified as cannabis.
"Pottery finds are routinely washed before they are sent for analysis, but one of our staff had the presence of mind to notice something was different about the soil filling this pot, left it in situ and sent it for analysis," Jon Welsh with Green Man Archaeology told Newsweek.
Cannabis was known to the ancient Romans and evidence suggests it was used medicinally and for industrial purposes, such as making hemp ropes. (Hemp is a type of cannabis plant that has long been cultivated for a wide variety of industrial uses. Hemp and the drug marijuana come from the same species, Cannabis sativa. But hemp has much lower levels of the compound THC, which is the psychoactive substance responsible for the "high" effect of marijuana.)
As the Roman Empire expanded, products made from the cannabis plant spread along with it. For example, the Romans are thought to be responsible for introducing cannabis to the British Isles. Evidence includes a well-rope made from hemp found at a Roman fort in Dumbartonshire, Scotland, that was occupied from A.D. 140-180.
"At that point all Roman hemp products [in Britain] are thought to have been brought from the Continent, as army supplies rather than imported," Welsh said.
But some research on pollen from soil samples has suggested that cannabis plant cultivation did not begin in Britain until around the end of the Roman period, as Germanic Anglo-Saxon peoples were settling on the island.
If the seeds from the pot found in Stockton-on-Tees do turn out to be from the cannabis plant, this could provide evidence for the possible ritual or recreational use of cannabis in Roman Britain, according to Welsh. However, the presence of cannabis has yet to be confirmed.
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