For nearly 150 years, a modest fossil sat quietly in a museum collection, its significance overlooked by generations of botanists. Discovered in 1883 by Paul Friedrich in the Saxony-Anhalt region of Germany, the specimen has recently been identified as a leaf from the genus *Cannabis*. Dating back 56 million years to the Early Eocene, the find effectively doubles the known age of the plant and fundamentally challenges long-held theories regarding its geographic origins.
Until now, the prevailing scientific consensus placed the birth of cannabis on the Tibetan Plateau roughly 20 to 28 million years ago, a timeline supported by ancient pollen samples and molecular DNA dating of modern species. This new evidence suggests a far more ancient lineage that flourished in Europe long before the geological rise of the Himalayas. The discovery, detailed by Ludwig Luthardt of Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde, implies that the evolutionary path of the genus is both older and more geographically expansive than previously mapped.
What is perhaps most striking to researchers is how little the plant’s architecture has changed across the epochs. Luthardt noted that the fossil’s morphology—from the distinctive serrated contours of the leaf to the intricate vein patterns—is nearly identical to that of modern cannabis. This biological stasis suggests a highly successful evolutionary design, one that has remained remarkably stable through tens of millions of years of climatic shifts and geological upheaval.
With reporting from Olhar Digital.
Source · Olhar Digital
