There is a very strong possibility that marijuana may have actually been the world's first agricultural crop, leading to the development of civilization itself.

During the Neolithic era, about 10.000 years ago, nomadic groups were know scavenge, hunt, fish, and gather plants in an neverending search for food. It all ended when they learned how to plant native grasses (grains) and developed agriculture. The latter requires a commitment to land and definitely grants a steady food supply, enabling people to form permanent settlements, which was a first at that point in time.

The Cannabis plant often came in contact with Neolithic bands, as it invaded the fertile clearings (such as campsites, road sides, fields or garbage heaps) that occurred …show more content…
People were often one meal away from starvation, which clearly underlines that they were not wasting energy on tasks that don't fill up their stomach.

Additionally, the Cannabis plant was the only one cultivated in a dioecious manner, having separate female and male plants. This is very interesting because it gives an insight into what they were thinking about and how they were using it. There is only one use for the female plant.

The earliest known farming culture to use Hemp or Cannabis plants was the Yangshao culture, whose origin goes back to 5.000 B.C. Yangshao was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the central Yellow River in China. They flourished mainly in the provinces of Henan, Shaanxi and Shanxi, dating to almost 3.000 years B.C.

The Yangshao culture produced silk in small amounts, wove hemp and made pottery. They used to wear Hemp based clothing and also domesticated creatures such as pigs and dogs. During its 2.000 years of existence, the economy of the Yangshao was Cannabis-driven. The trading of excess Cannabis with other tribes is easily deduced - it certainly played a major role in the plant’s …show more content…
- they used Cannabis seeds and oil to satisfy their hunger. Cannabis seeds were one of the main grains of early China, alongside rice, millet, barley and soybeans. The seeds were ground into meals, roasted whole or cooked in porridge.

The ancient Chinese tombs had sacrificial pottery filled with Cannabis seeds and other grains, preparing them for the afterlife. Ever since prehistoric times, there has been a continuous record sustaining the importance of Cannabis seeds for food. This lasted until the first to second century B.C., when the seeds were replaced by more palatable cereal grains. An interesting statement from the Tung-Kuan archives, around 28 A.D., records that after a war-caused famine the people subsisted on "wild" Cannabis and soybean for survival.

But people in ancient China relied on Cannabis for much more than just food - new uses were discovered for Cannabis as soon as the Chinese civilization progressed and developed new technology. The Chinese learned how to mill, heat and then wedge-press Cannabis seeds to extract the precious oil - a technique still widely used in the western world during the twentieth century. Pressed seeds are known to yield around 20 percent oil in terms of