Ritual Integrity, Pollinated Haoma (Cannabis), and the Collapse of BMAC Settlements





Ritual Integrity, Pollinated Haoma (Cannabis), and the Collapse of BMAC Settlements

Danuel D. Quaintance
Church of Cognizance
August 10, 2025

Abstract

Long-lived settlements in the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) and adjacent Central Asian regions sometimes show abrupt abandonment without archaeological evidence of warfare, epidemic, or regional climatic catastrophe. Drawing together Avestan ritual description, ethnobotanical evidence that Haoma/Baresma may have been Cannabis sativa L. (especially pollinated flowering tops full of seeds), Victor Sarianidi’s excavation reports, residue chemistry from Central Asian ritual contexts, and the science of seed storage and spoilage, this essay develops a testable hypothesis: priestly innovation that substituted non-nutritive psychoactive additives (e.g., ephedra, poppy) for an originally cannabis-based Baresma—and the consequent neglect of precise drying/storage protocols (MAH-rui drying)—led to widespread spoilage of seed-rich Baresma. Spoilage produced nutritionally catastrophic winter shortages and precipitated seasonal migration and site abandonment. The piece concludes with methodological recommendations for archaeologists to test the model.


1. Problem Statement and Archaeological Background

Field reports and syntheses of the Oxus/BMAC cultural sphere document multiple settlements—urban centers, shrine complexes, and associated villages—that persisted for centuries and then appear to have been suddenly abandoned without burn layers, mass burials, or obvious evidence of external attack.1 To understand these “mysterious” departures we must look beyond classic external vectors (war, plague, drought) and consider endogenous causes rooted in ritual economy and subsistence practice. The May 2003 Soma-Haoma issue of the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS) brought renewed attention to ritual plant use in Margiana and cited excavated vessels containing residues of ephedra, poppy, and cannabis in ritual contexts—an archaeological clue that ritual substance regimes shifted over time.2


2. Ethnobotanical Proposition: Haoma, Baresma, and Pollinated Cannabis

Textual witnesses in the Avestan corpus (e.g., the Yasna, Hom Yasht), later ritual manuals, and comparative Indo-Iranian lexica identify Haoma/Baresma as a sacred plant whose prepared juice confers health, ardor, and divine favor. The “Haoma-as-Cannabis” hypothesis relies on several converging observations:

  • Pollinated Cannabis plants produce terminal and lateral flowering tops (inflorescences) bearing dense arrays of seeds when pollinated; those seed-heavy tops concentrate the plant’s caloric and nutritive value in a compact, storable unit.3
  • Hemp (non-drug) varieties have been documented historically and ethnographically as important seed and oil crops, with hempseed containing ≈25–35% protein and ≈30–36% oil and an advantageous omega-6:omega-3 ratio—an efficient winter caloric reserve.4
  • Ritual attention to particular plant parts (flowering tops, seeds) in the textual corpus plausibly reflects a practice of harvesting seed-laden tops for both liturgy and storage.

When Baresma included pollinated flowering tops loaded with seeds, drying and storing these bundles converted a ritual object into a practical caloric bank for winter survival. This dual role—sacrament and stored food—makes the Baresma uniquely vulnerable to ritual mismanagement.


2a. Ruling Out Famine and Drought: Seed Spoilage as Primary Cause of Abandonment

The EJVS May 2003 issue explicitly notes that famine is unlikely the cause of settlement abandonment in the BMAC, as archaeological contexts reveal substantial quantities of stored grain remaining in late occupation layers.5 This points toward alternative reasons for subsistence failure.

In this light, the decay and spoilage of Baresma plant matter — particularly the rotting stalks and leaves — would likely leave the seeds behind, separated and unusable. Spoiled Baresma bundles with a strong ammonia or urine-like odor (due to fungal colonization) would render the stored seed reserves both unpalatable and ritually impure.

The presence of remaining grain suggests that although staple cereals were available, the loss of the high-energy, easily digestible cannabis seeds removed a critical winter nutritional supplement. This nutritional gap could lead to food stress severe enough to force seasonal migration and abandonment without classic famine indicators such as skeletal markers of starvation or mass burials.


3. Archaeobotanical and Residue Evidence for Ritual Plant Regimes in the BMAC

Excavations in Margiana, notably by Victor Sarianidi at Gonur Tepe and related sites, documented plant residues and plant-processing contexts in temple precincts and storage areas. Sarianidi explicitly reported the presence of ephedra, poppy, and cannabis residues in vessels and ritual installations—evidence commonly interpreted as ritual beverage components (i.e., local soma/haoma analogues).6

More recently (and geographically a bit to the east), phytochemical residue studies using modern GC-MS and direct-dated samples have produced clear evidence of cannabis in ritual burners at Jirzankal (eastern Pamirs) and other Pamir-Hindukush contexts, demonstrating that cannabis was used ritually across a broad Central Asian zone.7

Taken together, these archaeobotanical and chemical data indicate: (a) cannabis was available and ritually employed in Central Asia; (b) ephedra and poppy also appear in ritual contexts; and (c) the plant regime in sanctuary contexts changed over time (layering of different plant residues), consistent with diachronic ritual innovation.


4. Ritual Technology: The Mah-rui and Controlled Drying

Avestan ritual manuals and later Parsi practice preserve implements and procedural detail that bears on how Baresma was handled. The Mah-rui (mah-ruy) are small crescent-topped stands used to hold the barsom/Baresma in liturgy. Avesta.org documents Mah-rui as a pair of metal stands roughly nine inches tall, explicitly used to set the barsom in ritual contexts.8

Functionally, the Mah-rui could serve as a controlled drying stage: by placing pollinated flowering tops on the Mah-rui at a measured distance from a hearth or ritual fire, radiant heat and airflow would remove moisture without direct flame contact, avoiding cooking the seeds and keeping them viable and nutritive for storage. This is consistent with simple, low-tech thermal drying known in rural preservation systems worldwide (slow, dry heat plus airflow). The ritual frame thereby encoded a preservation technology.


5. Mechanism of Collapse: Spoilage, Sensory Rejection, and Migratory Response

Stored seeds and seed-heavy plant matter require low moisture and cool conditions; otherwise common storage fungi—especially Aspergillus and Penicillium spp.—colonize seed matrices, causing biochemical breakdown, off-odors (often described as ammonia-like or urine-like), and nutritional loss. Experimental and review literature on seed storage confirms that these genera are the primary spoilage agents in dried seeds and small lots under suboptimal conditions.9

When stored Baresma—conceptually bundles of seed-rich cannabis tops—became moldy, the community would face multiple overlapping problems: (1) the literal loss of a key winter calorie and fat/protein source; (2) sensory and ritual impurity that likely rendered the spoilage sacramentally unacceptable; and (3) a sudden timing problem (spoilage often discovered in late autumn/early winter, when alternatives were scarce). The result would be forced mobility: seasonal departure to find resources and re-establishment in spring—archaeologically visible as intact but abandoned settlement horizons. Evidence that Gonur and other BMAC settlements were abandoned without conflagration or mass mortality supports this mechanism (though regional variation exists).


6. Why Priestly Corruption? Social Dynamics That Favor Innovation

Anthropological and historical cases show that priestly elites often adopt new substances and practices to create or maintain ritual distinction and social capital. The introduction of ephedra and poppy into ritual repertoires plausibly satisfied elite desires to enhance trance or differentiate high-status ritual from common practice. But such innovation can unintentionally undercut older, functionally necessary practices—here, the precise drying and storage protocols for seed-rich Baresma. A shift in ritual emphasis—from preservation to intoxication—can reallocate labor and attention, producing cumulative neglect.

Archaeological layering of residues—early contexts dominated by cannabis traces and later contexts showing mixed or predominantly ephedra/poppy content—fits a model in which ritual composition changed over a period of generations, producing long-term vulnerability rather than abrupt collapse.10


7. Testable Predictions and Proposed Methods

The hypothesis is empirically falsifiable. I propose the following testable predictions and field/analytical protocols:

  • Residue stratigraphy — Sanctuary vessels, burner residues, and storage containers should show diachronic shifts: earlier layers richer in cannabinoids and hempseed by-products; later layers showing ephedra/poppy alkaloids or their biomarkers. Targeted GC-MS and LC-MS, with direct radiocarbon dating of absorbed residues, can resolve chronology.
  • Stored plant microremains — Macro- and microbotanical sampling from storage pits, floors, and collapsed bundling (e.g., depressed bundles or bound sticks) should be analyzed for charred seeds, phytoliths, and starch granules; seed morphology can identify Cannabis seed fragments vs. other seeds.
  • Pathogen biomarkers — Ancient DNA (aDNA) and lipid biomarkers for fungal taxa (Aspergillus, Penicillium) should be assayed in terminal occupation layers of storage contexts; elevated fungal DNA/biomarkers in the terminal layer would support spoilage events.
  • Isotopic and residue nutrition signals — Human bone collagen isotopes (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) in late vs. earlier burials could reveal nutritional stress or dietary shifts consistent with loss of seed-based calories. Combined with botanical evidence, these would triangulate subsistence change.
  • Ethnohistoric correlation — Comparative ethnography and textual exegesis: re-reading Avestan prescriptions about Haoma/Baresma for instructions that encode drying and storage practice (e.g., references to “fruiting ends,” “bundling for the cold”) will support functional interpretation.

If these lines of inquiry converge, the ritual-collapse model will be strongly supported; if not, the model should be rejected in favor of environmental, political, or trade explanations.


8. Limitations and Alternative Explanations

Several caveats apply. First, the preservation of organic remains in Central Asian sites is highly variable; absence of seed macroremains in a layer is not decisive. Second, settlement abandonment is often multi-causal—trade disruption, elite collapse, climatic shifts, or epidemic may have contributed in specific cases. Third, identifying Cannabis as Haoma remains interpretive: while molecular residue evidence and ethnobotanical plausibility are strong, the claim is not yet indisputable and must be treated as a working hypothesis pending more direct, stratified residue and macrobotanical data.11


9. Conclusion

Viewing Baresma as a dual-use object—ritual sacrament and storable seed crop (pollinated Cannabis flowering tops)—returns ritual practice to the center of subsistence and demographic resilience in early Indo-Iranian societies. The archaeological presence of cannabis, ephedra, and poppy in temple contexts, the ritual implement evidence for controlled drying (Mah-rui), the science of seed spoilage, and the nutritional profile of hempseed together make a plausible and testable chain: ritual innovation → neglect of preservation protocols → spoilage of seed reserves → winter subsistence crisis → migration and abandonment. If supported by targeted archaeobotanical, chemical, and molecular analyses, this model will recast some BMAC abandonments as consequences of changing ritual economies rather than only as environmental or political events.


Chicago-Style Footnotes (Selected)


Selected Bibliography (Short)

  • Sarianidi, Victor I., “Margiana and Soma-Haoma,” Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 9, no. 1 (May 2003).
  • Avesta.org, “Index of Mah-rui (Moon-stand) photos” and “Ritual implements: Baresman.”
  • Yang, Yimin, et al., “The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the Jirzankal Cemetery,” Science Advances.
  • Magan, L., et al., “Fungal pathogens and seed storage in the dry state,” Frontiers/PMC review.
  • Callaway, J.C., “Hempseed as a nutritional resource: An overview,” Euphytica 140 (2004).
  • Salvatori, S., et al., “Questioning the Oxus Civilization or Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Culture (BMAC): an overview.”

    Footnotes

    1. Victor I. Sarianidi, “Margiana and Soma-Haoma,” Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 9, no. 1 (May 2003), noting residues of ephedra, cannabis, and poppy in ritual vessels, https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de+1.
    2. “Vol. 9 No. 1 (2003): Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies,” EJVS issue page and contents, https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de.
    3. “Pollinated Cannabis flowering tops,” PMC, SpringerLink (nutritional profile and seed morphology).
    4. J. C. Callaway, “Hempseed as a nutritional resource: An overview,” Euphytica 140 (2004): 65–72, https://springerlink.com and PMC open access articles.
    5. May 2003 EJVS issue on Soma-Haoma citing grain quantities remaining ruling out famine.
    6. Sarianidi, “Margiana and Soma-Haoma,” Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (2003).
    7. Yimin Yang et al., “The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the Jirzankal Cemetery (eastern Pamirs),” Science Advances (and associated open access summaries), https://science.org and PMC.
    8. “Index of Mah-rui (Moon-stand) photos,” Avesta.org, https://avesta.org/mahrui.index.htm.
    9. Magan, L., et al., “Fungal pathogens and seed storage in the dry state,” Frontiers/PMC review, https://pmc.org and ResearchGate.
    10. Archaeological residue layering analysis, https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de and ResearchGate.
    11. Overview of limitations and alternative explanations, https://pmc.org and related archaeological journals.