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Pre-hispanic Use of Cocoa
Abstract
Native to South America, Theobroma cacao was cultivated in Mesoamerica by at least 1800 B.C.E. Cacao became a widespread trade item and form of tribute. Elites, priests, and warriors consumed a variety of chocolate drinks using distinctive drinking vessels, means of frothing, and additives. The healthful properties were recognized, and chocolate was used to treat a variety of ailments before European contact.
... Theobroma cacao L. or 'chocolate tree' had a mystical and spiritual value among the Mesoamerican populations due to >100 healing properties reported (alleviation stomach pain, reduction of fever, management of the common cold, etc.) (Crown, 2013;Wilson, 2012). There are indications that cocoa was originated in the upper Amazon region, extending to the Mexican southeast sector where its domestication has been attributed to the Olmec culture (1800 to 1000 BCE). ...
... There are indications that cocoa was originated in the upper Amazon region, extending to the Mexican southeast sector where its domestication has been attributed to the Olmec culture (1800 to 1000 BCE). Subsequently, and because of European colonization, cocoa became known in the rest of the world (Crown, 2013;Wickramasuriya & Dunwell, 2018). ...
In this study, the effect of continuous assisted extraction (CUAE) and pulsed ultrasound assisted extraction (PUAE) of phenolic compounds from cocoa beans was evaluated. Frequency (25/45 kHz) and extraction time (15/30 min) were varied. Phenolic acids were identified as catechin-(+), epicatechin-(+), procyanidin B1 and procyanidin B2 were quantified on each extract by HPLC-DAD. Then, total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoids content (TFC), flavan-3-ols, non-flavonoids content (NF) and proanthocyanidins (PAC) were determined. The experimental findings indicated the highest extraction yields of TPC and flavonoids subclasses when prolonged PUAE was used. Additionally, an increase of 282% in epicatechin yield was obtained compared with CUAE. However, the prolonged use of continuous sonication increased the non-flavonoids extraction yield in 23% compared with pulsed sonication. The scavenging and iron chelating activity depended on the chemical composition of each extract and was not correlated directly to TPC.
... From its origin as a spicy frothy drink (Coe & Coe, 2007) or fermented beverage prepared by several peoples that lived in Mesoamerica nearly 4,000 years ago (Crown, 2013), chocolate has evolved into one of the non-basic food products of highest popularity and acceptance especially in Western countries. Its texture, the sensory stimuli of pleasure and mood produced by its consumption (Macht & Dettmer, 2006), in addition to the amount and composition of its phenolic compounds which provide health benefits, are the main reasons for its acceptance (Djoussé et al., 2011;d'El-Rei et al., 2013). ...
... In the southeast region of Mexico, the history of cocoa farming dates back to pre-colonial times, when it was used even as currency by the Aztec people and their tributaries. This fact shows the importance that cocoa had (Crown, 2013). The Criollo variety was cultivated by the Dlmecs, Mayas, Mokayas and others peoples as recorded in several codices. ...
The odor and taste profile of cocoa bean samples obtained from trees cultivated in southern Mexico were evaluated by trained panelists. Seven representative samples (groups) of a total of 45 were analyzed. Four attributes of taste (sweetness, bitterness, acidity and astringency), and nine of odor (chocolate, nutty, hazelnut, sweet, acidity, roasted, spicy, musty and off-odor) were evaluated. A sample (G7) with higher scores in sweet taste and sweet and nutty odors was detected, as well as a high association between these descriptors and the sample, analyzed through principal component analysis (PCA). Similarly, samples that showed high scores for non-desired odors in cocoas such as off-odor and musty were identified and related by PCA to roasted odor and astringent taste (G2 and G4). Based on this scores, the samples were listed in descending order by their sensory quality as G7> G5> G6> G3> G1> G4> G2.
... From around AD 850-1130, Chaco Canyon was one of the largest Pueblo sites in the region. Chaco was likely an economic centre for distributing agricultural and luxury goods for the entire San Juan Basin region of Northwest Mexico ( Washburn et al., 2011;Crown, 2013). Cacao from the Gulf Coast or Southern Mexico was among the items used and likely traded at Chaco Canyon ( Crown and Hurst, 2009). ...
The Southwest United States (US) and Mesoamerica are often thought of as disparate regional networks separated by Northern Mexico. Chaco Canyon in the Southwest US, Tlatelolco in Central Mexico, and Casas Grandes in Northern Mexico all had large inter-regional trade centers that economically connected these networks. This study investigated how factors such as geographic distance, shared migration history, trade, and political interaction affected biological relationships and population affinities among sites in Mexico and the Southwest US during the Postclassic period (AD 900 ~ 1520). Distances based on cultural and geographic variables derived from archaeological and ethnohistoric data were compared with phenetic distances obtained from dental morphological traits. The results of Mantel tests show trade (corr = 0.441, p = 0.005), shared migration history (corr = 0.496, p = 0.004), and geographic distance (corr = 0.304, p = 0.02) are significantly correlated with phenetic distances, while political interaction (corr = 0.157, p = 0.133) is not. Partial Mantel tests show trade (corr = 0.223, p = 0.049) and shared migration history (corr = 0.493, p = 0.003) remain significant when controlling for similarities with geographic distance, although the correlation for trade and phenetic distance is lowered. Geographic distance is not significant when similarities with trade (corr = 0.067, p = 0.681) and shared migration history (corr = 0.148, p = 0.127) are controlled. These results highlight the importance of economic relationships and shared migration history across geographic regions in interpreting biological relationships among contemporaneous populations in prehistoric Mexico and the Southwest US. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Cacao economies in far western Mexico developed between AD 850/900 and 1350+ along with the adoption of a political–religious complex centered on the solar deity Xochipilli as the Aztatlán culture became integrated into expanding political, economic, and information networks of highland and southern Mesoamerica. The Xochipilli complex significantly transformed societies in the Aztatlán core zone of coastal Nayarit and Sinaloa and parts of Jalisco, Durango, Zacatecas, and Michoacán. West Mexican cacao was acquired in the U.S. Southwest by Chaco Canyon elites in New Mexico through macroregional prestige goods economies as Ancestral Pueblo societies became integrated into the Postclassic Mesoamerican world.
This chapter addresses the problem in linguistic reconstruction that is significant for work on lexical diffusion in Mesoamerica as well as research on the intercultural interaction that probably dates to the Preclassic period. This chapter focuses on the origin and spread of the widely diffused form kakawa as a word for cacao in Mesoamerican languages. The chapter also addresses the origin and history of the word chokol=a:-tl. The chapter illustrates that the word for “cacao” originated in the Gulf Coast of southern Mexico, among speakers of an early Mije-Sokean language. From there it spread to the basin of Mexico in the form of kakawa and into the Mayan languages but not necessarily from Sokean. In Mayan, the word for cacao came to be pronounced as kakaw, and from Mayan or Mijean the word kakaw spread in Honduras Lenka. From the speakers of the languages of the Honduras Lenka, kakaw began spreading into other languages of lower Central America and Costa Rica, including South America, after the pre-Columbian times.
We propose the existence of extensive trade and interaction among the peoples of the American Southwest and Mesoamerica. We base this inference on our detection of the widespread presence of theobromine, the biomarker for cacao, in 50 of 75 vessels used by Ancestral Puebloans (previously referred to as Anasazi) elites and non-elites from the Four Corners area and Hohokam elites of the Gila and Salt river valleys in the prehistoric American Southwest. We used a non-invasive, non-destructive aqueous sampling procedure that provides conservation advantages over the current methods that require crushing and boiling sherds or removing residues from vessel surfaces. Analysis of these samples by sensitive LC-MS instrumentation capable of detecting nanogram quantities of material revealed theobromine in non-local vessel forms found in elite burials in great house and platform mound sites as well as in local vessel forms used by non-elites living in small unit-pueblos. After elimination of plants native to the Southwest as the source of theobromine, we conclude that either Theobroma cacao or Theobroma Bicolor was imported from its homeland in the Mesoamerican tropical coastal lowlands. Our results are at odds with the current consensus that there was little systematic commerce between Mesoamerican and Southwestern polities. We suggest that cacao was exchanged for high quality turquoise such as that mined in the Cerrillos, New Mexico mining district. We conclude that, far from being isolated developmentally, this trade integrally tied populations in the American Southwest to the socio-political and economic activities of Mesoamerican states.
Mesoamerican peoples had a long history of cacao use--spanning more than 34 centuries--as confirmed by previous identification of cacao residues on archaeological pottery from Paso de la Amada on the Pacific Coast and the Olmec site of El Manatí on the Gulf Coast. Until now, comparable evidence from San Lorenzo, the premier Olmec capital, was lacking. The present study of theobromine residues confirms the continuous presence and use of cacao products at San Lorenzo between 1800 and 1000 BCE, and documents assorted vessels forms used in its preparation and consumption. One elite context reveals cacao use as part of a mortuary ritual for sacrificial victims, an event that occurred during the height of San Lorenzo's power.
Molecular analyses are providing new elements to decipher the origin, domestication and dispersal of native Amazonian crops in an expanding archaeological context. Solid molecular data are available for manioc (Manihot esculenta), cacao (Theobroma cacao), pineapple (Ananas comosus), peach palm (Bactris gasipaes) and guaraná (Paullinia cupana), while hot peppers (Capsicum spp.), inga (Inga edulis), Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa) and cupuassu (Theobroma grandiflorum) are being studied. Emergent patterns include the relationships among domestication, antiquity (terminal Pleistocene to early Holocene), origin in the periphery, ample pre-Columbian dispersal and clear phylogeographic population structure for manioc, pineapple, peach palm and, perhaps, Capsicum peppers. Cacao represents the special case of an Amazonian species possibly brought into domestication in Mesoamerica, but close scrutiny of molecular data suggests that it may also have some incipiently domesticated populations in Amazonia. Another pattern includes the relationships among species with incipiently domesticated populations or very recently domesticated populations, rapid pre- or post-conquest dispersal and lack of phylogeographic population structure, e.g., Brazil nut, cupuassu and guaraná. These patterns contrast the peripheral origin of most species with domesticated populations with the subsequent concentration of their genetic resources in the center of the basin, along the major white water rivers where high pre-conquest population densities developed. Additional molecular genetic analyses on these and other species will allow better examination of these processes and will enable us to relate them to other historical ecological patterns in Amazonia.
This paper explores definitions of luxury foods and considers the role of luxuries in marking social distinction. It is proposed that luxury foods are those foods that offer a refinement in texture, taste, fat content or other quality (such as stimulant or inebriant) and offer distinction, because of either their quantity or quality. Ethnographic research has revealed that an emphasis on quantity of food and elaboration of common staples is found mostly in societies without strong social stratification, while an emphasis on quality and style is characteristic of societies with institutionalized forms of social ranking. In the former context the consumption of luxury foods is used primarily to create or enhance social bonds, in the latter to create or enhance exclusivity and distance. The archaeological recognition of luxury foods is reviewed to demonstrate how archaeology is well placed to add regional breadth and chronological depth to the study of the changing role and meaning of luxury foods.
Chemical analyses of organic residues in fragments of ceramic vessels from Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, reveal theobromine, a biomarker for cacao. With an estimated 800 rooms, Pueblo Bonito is the largest archaeological site in Chaco Canyon and was the center of a large number of interconnected towns and villages spread over northwestern New Mexico. The cacao residues come from pieces of vessels that are likely cylinder jars, special containers occurring almost solely at Pueblo Bonito and deposited in caches at the site. This first known use of cacao drinks north of the Mexican border indicates exchange with cacao cultivators in Mesoamerica in a time frame of about A.D. 1000-1125. The association of cylinder jars and cacao beverages suggests that the Chacoan ritual involving the drinking of cacao was tied to Mesoamerican rituals incorporating cylindrical vases and cacao. The importance of Pueblo Bonito within the Chacoan world likely lies in part with the integration of Mesoamerican ritual, including critical culinary ingredients.
The medicinal use of cacao, or chocolate, both as a primary remedy and as a vehicle to deliver other medicines, originated in the New World and diffused to Europe in the mid 1500s. These practices originated among the Olmec, Maya and Mexica (Aztec). The word cacao is derived from Olmec and the subsequent Mayan languages (kakaw); the chocolate-related term cacahuatl is Nahuatl (Aztec language), derived from Olmec/Mayan etymology. Early colonial era documents included instructions for the medicinal use of cacao. The Badianus Codex (1552) noted the use of cacao flowers to treat fatigue, whereas the Florentine Codex (1590) offered a prescription of cacao beans, maize and the herb tlacoxochitl (Calliandra anomala) to alleviate fever and panting of breath and to treat the faint of heart. Subsequent 16th to early 20th century manuscripts produced in Europe and New Spain revealed >100 medicinal uses for cacao/chocolate. Three consistent roles can be identified: 1) to treat emaciated patients to gain weight; 2) to stimulate nervous systems of apathetic, exhausted or feeble patients; and 3) to improve digestion and elimination where cacao/chocolate countered the effects of stagnant or weak stomachs, stimulated kidneys and improved bowel function. Additional medical complaints treated with chocolate/cacao have included anemia, poor appetite, mental fatigue, poor breast milk production, consumption/tuberculosis, fever, gout, kidney stones, reduced longevity and poor sexual appetite/low virility. Chocolate paste was a medium used to administer drugs and to counter the taste of bitter pharmacological additives. In addition to cacao beans, preparations of cacao bark, oil (cacao butter), leaves and flowers have been used to treat burns, bowel dysfunction, cuts and skin irritations.
The Maya archaeological site at Colha in northern Belize, Central America, has yielded several spouted ceramic vessels that contain residues from the preparation of food and beverages. Here we analyse dry residue samples by using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to atmospheric-pressure chemical-ionization mass spectrometry, and show that chocolate (Theobroma cacao) was consumed by the Preclassic Maya as early as 600 bc, pushing back the earliest chemical evidence of cacao use by some 1,000 years. Our application of this new and highly sensitive analytical technique could be extended to the identification of other ancient foods and beverages.
Chemical analyses of residues extracted from pottery vessels from Puerto Escondido in what is now Honduras show that cacao beverages were being made there before 1000 B.C., extending the confirmed use of cacao back at least 500 years. The famous chocolate beverage served on special occasions in later times in Mesoamerica, especially by elites, was made from cacao seeds. The earliest cacao beverages consumed at Puerto Escondido were likely produced by fermenting the sweet pulp surrounding the seeds.
• archaeology
• chemistry
• Honduras
• Mesoamerica
A newly developed compound-specific stable carbon isotope technique allows the detection of maize in absorbed organic pottery residues. This method was applied to absorbed organic residues from a variety of Mississippi Valley potsherds, and successfully identified maize components. Maize was cooked in sampled vessels less often than expected, but otherwise fitted expected patterns of maize use derived from stable carbon isotope analysis of human bone from the region. Absorbed organic pottery residue analysis is useful in determining pottery use, particularly in concert with other analytical methods.
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