A Chocolate Habit in Ancient North America

Chemical residue from chocolate turned up
in these pots from Choco Canyon, New Mexico.
Image Courtesy of Science Magazine,
National Museum of the American Indian,
Smithsonian Institution & Walter Larrimore.

August 2014.

Michael Bawaya, of Science Magazine, has written an exciting article about the possible trade of chocolate between Mesoamerica and the Southwest, Southeast, and Midwest
dating from 900 to 1400 C.E. 

"Chocolate may change that picture, with the recent discovery of subtle residues of it in pots from Cahokia. Added to similar evidence from the Southeast and Southwest, the findings suggest regular trade in cacao—and movements of the people who imbued it with significance—between ancient Mesoamericans and their northern neighbors, says Dorothy Washburn, an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology"

-Michael Bawaya, Science Magazine.

To read the full article, click here.

For more information, 

Visit:

• Washburn, Dorothy K., William N. Washburn, Petia A. Shipkova, and Mary Ann Pelleymounter. 2014. Chemical analysis of cacao residues in archaeological ceramics from North America: Considerations of contamination, sample size, and systematic controls. Journal of Archaeological Science 50 : 191-207.
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