Long after we’re all gone, cannabis will probably still be around. Scientists think cannabis might be about 30 million years old, if not older. Evidence suggests our earliest bipedal mammalian relative/ancestor was Australopithecus. You might even know what they looked like because of Lucy (several hundred pieces of fossilized bone found by archeologists, representing 40 percent of the skeleton of a female of the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis) or even the film Lucy starring Scarlet Johansson.
Our ancestor Australopithecus walked the Earth between two and four million years ago. That might seem like a long time to a vertebrate (animals with spines) but some field scientists say based on what they’re seeing that they think cannabis could be about 30 million years old. The team is studying the area around the Tibetan steps. The alleged location of the mythical paradise Shangri-La. You can read more about these remarkable findings here.
Cannabis might be even older. Our planet has experienced five extinction level events and it’s possible the evidence of even older cannabis went up in flames and smoke from a volcano or were atomized by the impact of an asteroid strike like the one that took out T-Rex.
Just for fun we Googled “what is 30 million years old?” Very few results came back. The two most interesting ones were 1. The Nile River in Africa and 2. a story about involuntary monkey-mariners that somehow sailed (OK- floated) from West Africa to South America back when those two continents were closer to one another.
Anyway – the Herb is ancient. Even more ancient than our hominid ancestors like Lucy. Who makes an appearance at the 2:30 mark in the video below.
Cannabis watched us come into the world. Unless we make some radically necessary changes (looking at you, fossil fuels) and quickly, it will likely watch us depart. And maybe when all the crazy humans are gone and the planet has a chance to breathe and heal itself, cannabis will say to the river and the mountain, “Remember those talking monkeys?”
And maybe the river and the mountain will roll their eyes and go, “Yeah – that was super weird. Maybe even weirder than the giant lizards with the big teeth and tiny arms. Remember them?”