Archaeologists studying a 2,800-year-old royal burial mound in southern Siberia have found cannabis seeds and chemical traces in preserved human hair, evidence that may push back the earliest directly documented psychoactive use of the plant by roughly 300 years. The findings, published November 5, 2026, in Science, come from Tunnug 1, a monumental tomb associated with the early Scythians. They also raise a fascinating question: did cannabis play a part in elaborate ancient funerals involving sacrificed horses and possibly people?
Researchers say the combination of plant remains and hair chemistry is unusually revealing. But independent experts caution that exposure to cannabis inside a tomb is not necessarily the same thing as deliberately consuming it. The precise ritual, if there was one, remains unknown.
A royal tomb in Siberia’s Valley of the Kings
Tunnug 1 lies in the Republic of Tyva, in the remote Uyuk Valley of southern Siberia. The immense burial mound, about 140 meters across, belongs to a society famous for horse riding, sophisticated metalwork and spectacular funerary monuments. Excavation began in 2017, with researchers confronting swampy ground, freezing weather and a short field season.
Within wooden burial chambers, archaeologists found more than a thousand cannabis seeds, along with human remains and objects associated with elite Scythian life. Six seeds were directly radiocarbon dated. The results place the deposits in the early eighth century BC, rather than representing plants that arrived at the site centuries later.
That dating matters. Archaeologists have long known that cannabis was used in ancient Eurasia, but determining whether a particular community grew it for fiber, harvested it for oil or valued its mind-altering effects is far more difficult. Seeds by themselves cannot answer the question.
The surprising evidence preserved in human hair
The research team, led by archaeologist Gino Caspari of the University of Bern and the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, examined remarkably preserved hair from the tomb’s central burial chamber. Using high-resolution chemical analysis, they detected signals consistent with cannabinol, or CBN, in several samples, alongside weaker signals consistent with THC.
CBN can form when THC, cannabis’s principal intoxicating compound, breaks down over time. Finding these chemical markers in human hair, together with dated seeds in the same burial context, led the researchers to argue that cannabis was used for its psychoactive properties around 2,800 years ago.
It is an arresting result, but not a complete reconstruction of ancient behavior. The tests cannot tell us how much cannabis was involved, whether people smoked it or ate it, or even exactly when exposure occurred. The scientists also cannot establish whether the plants were specially cultivated for potency.
Were the Scythians using cannabis in funeral ceremonies?
The burial setting adds an unsettling dimension. Tunnug 1 has yielded remains of numerous horses that appear to have been sacrificed as part of elite funerary ceremonies. Researchers have also identified scattered human bones and believe some deaths may have been sacrificial, although interpretations of individual remains remain under investigation.
One possibility is that cannabis was used during funerary rites, perhaps as an intoxicant or to alter participants’ experiences. Another, more speculative idea is that it could have been administered to people involved in sacrifices. Neither scenario has been demonstrated by the chemical evidence, and there is no way to identify the intentions of the people who placed the seeds in the grave.
The discovery also recalls the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who described Scythians inhaling vapors from cannabis placed on heated stones during purification rites. His account dates from centuries after the Tunnug 1 burials. The new study provides an intriguing parallel, not proof that the same ceremony occurred in this particular tomb.
Why some scientists remain unconvinced
Outside specialists have challenged how confidently the hair results can be interpreted. Forensic toxicologist Volker Auwärter, quoted by the Associated Press, questioned whether the tests adequately distinguish actual consumption from external contamination. Hair buried alongside cannabis could potentially acquire compounds without its owner having deliberately used the plant.
That distinction is important. The seeds’ presence and the chemical signals are real findings reported by the researchers, but the leap from exposure to intentional intoxication is still debated. Other experts consider the hair testing persuasive and argue that it strengthens a picture already suggested by archaeological evidence elsewhere in Central Asia.
The strongest conclusion is therefore more careful than the most sensational headlines: this tomb offers unusually early, securely dated evidence linking cannabis with human remains in a ceremonial burial, and the researchers interpret it as psychoactive use.
What happens next?
Researchers are now investigating the exceptionally preserved plant DNA. That work could illuminate where these ancient cannabis populations came from, how they spread across Eurasia and whether people were selecting particular varieties long before written histories described the plant.
For now, Tunnug 1 leaves us with a haunting picture: a monumental tomb on the Siberian steppe, sacrificed horses, ancient braided hair and tiny seeds that survived almost three millennia. Science has recovered a remarkable chemical clue. What those people actually experienced, and what they believed it meant, remains a mystery.
