Horns O Plenty

Evidence suggests that hemp cultivation was part of Viking culture

The Vikings were warriors, pirates, explorers, traders and sailors that terrorized medieval Europe between the 6th and 11th centuries. These fearsome, well-armed and violent men sailed on craft known as longships from as far as Sweden, Norway and Scandinavia to assault monasteries, villages and castles all throughout France, Ireland, Britain and beyond.

Apparently, they also grew their own hemp.

Because Viking culture survived and thrived for as long as it had, archaeologists have gone to great lengths to study them. Rune stones inscribed with the names and deeds of famous warriors in the language of the “Norsemen,” another term for these adventurous people, can be found in Russia, the Middle East and Germany. However, archaeological digs reveal a people more complicated than the usual horn-helmeted stereotype. New evidence indicates that, just like a lot of other cultures, Vikings cultivated the hemp plant.

Vest-Agder County is a cold, harsh, rocky region located in the southern part of Norway long known to be a place once inhabited by the Vikings. Many remains of settlements have been found there, including one known as the Sosteli farmstead. While evidence that Vikings were familiar with cannabis has been found before, the remains here indicate that Vikings planted it, too.

Seeds and leaves have been found in graves where the bodies of Vikings were buried, but researchers weren’t sure if hemp was merely an agricultural product for these practical, barbaric people—or if it was used for its psychoactive or medicinal properties. “The other instances were just individual finds of pollen grains. Much has been found here,” says Frans-Arne Stylegar, an archaeologist and curator for Vest-Agder County.

Much like the ancient Chinese, Vikings living in Vest-Adger Country probably grew hemp for its fibers. They probably didn’t grow it for smoking. “We don’t know if hemp could have been used as a drug. Most of it was probably used in textile production,” reports archaeologist Marianne Vedeler, who works at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, Norway. In any case, what is significant is that evidence taken from the peat moss surrounding the farmlands around Sosteli showed intentional signs of planting, which proves that these Vikings didn’t trade for their hemp—they grew their own.

Catherine Jessen, a geologist who specializes in the study of pollen, works at the National Museum of Denmark where the peat soil study took place. She confirmed the presence of cannabis by examining findings left over from a dig that had been performed in the 1950s. “The samples had been forgotten, so it was really exciting to discover them,” says Jessen. After hemp seeds had been found in the soil sample, Jessen and Stylegar published their findings in the science journal Viking for peer review.

While we don’t know if the Vikings ingested cannabis for medicinal effects, we do know that they grew the plant for the same reasons other cultures did. Cannabis has been with us since the dawn of civilization.

Made in China

The Vikings were certainly not the first and oldest human civilization to grow cannabis for use and/or consumption. That credit might possibly go to the Yang-shao, a Neolithic culture that existed around the Yellow River in China 6,500 years ago. Just like the people living in the Chou Dynasty 3,000 years later, the ancient Chinese grew hemp for rope, clothing, fishing nets and other, similar uses. It is certainly ironic that today possession of just a few grams of cannabis will get you the death penalty in the city of Beijing.