Hemp.

I think the importance of hemp in the late neolithic and early Bronze Age economy has been understated in the literature. While we become excited about uses of bronze and gold, the emergence of sophisticated wheeled vehicles and the first appearance of horseback riding, the importance of hemp seems to be left unappreciated.

Hemp makes rope. While you can plait leather strips together into an acceptable substitute for rope, you have to laboriously trim the leather into strips, and take especial care in the knottings so the individual strips don't separate (and thus break your leather 'rope'). Hemp fibers range up to 1.8 meters in length, and can be woven into a tough rope of infinite length. Wool would not have been an acceptable fiber for this use; I don't know if linen can be made into an acceptably strong rope, but I don't think it can. Can you imagine handling cattle and horses without rope of some kind?

Hemp is easy to grow, and is suited to a range of Eurasian climates (see the articles in the online Encyclopaedia Brittanica). Mallory and Adams, in the article 'Hemp' (pp. 266-67), in the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture tell us:
 

Hemp is found in the wild state in Central Asia and it occurs on Neolithic sites from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic (seed impressions on pots), Romania, Moldova (seed impressions on Linear Ware culture pots), and the Ukraine. Its presence in these areas is sparse and it does not seem to have been common in Greece until the classical period, although Herodotus (4.74) does mention its use among the Thracians.

[...]

The old northern hemp that the PIE speakers and their neighbors had been using since 5,000 BC did not contain the narcotic.

[...]

There are thus at least three chronological horizons to which the spread of hemp might be ascribed: the early distribution of hemp across Europe during the Neolithic c 5000 BC or earlier; the later spread of hemp for presumably narcotic purposes, about 3000 BC; a still later spread, or at least, re-emergence of hemp in the context of textiles during trhe first millennium BC.

The Corded Ware horizon is named for its characteristic pots, incised with linear decorations made with cord. I've never read anything that explicitly states this cord was made from hemp. I've also not read what is exactly meant by the 'linear band' in the Linear Band/LBK (Linearbandkeramik )  culture. Does anyone here know anything? The LBK evidence antedates the appearance of narcotic hemp. Since the seed-impressions are on this pottery, one can presume they used it to make cord (what other use would it have been put to?).

Mallory and Adams, in the same article, note the rise in the textile use of hemp "was regularly coincidental with the rise in flax." Still, they were using non-narcotic hemp from 5,000 and it would seem it was used for its fiber first, and this is my real query. I think hemp was first and foremost a fiber-plant. It gave thread, rope, yarn. My thinking is that it was fundamental to their economies.

I know this is a weak ending, but my thinking is not firm on this topic. I'm looking for additional input.

Mark Odegard.