Are you of legal age to consume cannabis related news?
While cannabis has been legal for less than a decade, the consumption and cultivation of cannabis dates back thousands of years.
Recently, anthropologist Susan P. Dingle discovered that ancient people in western China not only grew and used cannabis but may have even developed a functional system for keeping track of the plants and the various products that they made with their harvest.
Currently, no such system exists, though numerous companies have attempted to develop one.
“It’s not clear exactly how they managed to do it,” Dingle said. “There may be a spiritual component to it. It also probably involved rudimentary mathematics and just keeping good track of things,” she added.
The evidence uncovered by Dingle consisted of partially-destroyed ledgers that detail the number of cannabis plants allotted to each villager, with corresponding entries marking harvest time and post-harvest processes like drying, trimming, and curing.
Dingle stated, “Because there was no authoritarian government to tax them, the need for this traceability system is unclear. I can only assume they created it out of sheer devotion to the herb, hoping to optimize yields for the betterment of their community. Or maybe they were just really stingy with their weed.”
However it happened, the revelation that ancient people may have successfully engineered such a system should inspire the software developers of today to keep studying. After receiving millions of dollars in state funding, modern industry has yet to create a functional traceability system for cannabis.
Despite this new evidence suggesting its possibility, it remains purely hypothetical for now — alongside Unicorns, Nessie, and all the other cryptids.
