The lost crop key – cannabis in the Neolithic economy

Some plants feed a household.
Others help build an economy.

A 2026 study led by researchers from Shandong University presented new evidence for the place of cannabis within prehistoric agriculture in northern China.

The researchers analysed phytoliths from 132 samples collected at the Beitaishang and Qianzhongzitou settlements in Shandong. The archaeological sequence extended from the Late Neolithic Longshan period into the Early Bronze Age.

It belonged to the core crop assemblage.

Cannabis phytoliths appeared frequently in domestic contexts and often alongside established crops such as millet and rice. The authors argue that, by the Late Neolithic, cannabis had become systematically integrated into the local agricultural economy.

They interpret its principal uses as food or fibre. The phytoliths themselves, however, demonstrate repeated plant presence and processing more securely than they reveal the exact product made from it.

The plant was not simply an isolated find.
It was part of everyday agricultural life.

For LIBERA HERBA, this is an important correction. Cannabis did not enter human history only through ritual, medicine or intoxication. Here it appears within fields, households, agricultural processing and daily subsistence.

Before the plant became a symbol,
it was infrastructure.
A crop people lived with.
A crop people worked.

A crop that helped organise
the human day.