Talking about cocoa is talking about its impact on Mesoamerican societies. The cocoa arrived in Mexico at some point in 1900 AC and it is estimated that it was the Olmecs who domesticated the plant at some point between 1200 and 400 AC was the pillar of different Mesoamerican cultures and became more than a food. However, recent studies have challenged that idea.
The reason? Neither olmecs, nor Maya, nor Aztecs: the first who used cocoa were the Amazonian cultures that bound with Ecuador and Colombia. We go in parts.
The food of the gods. As we say, cocoa is something cultural in Mexico. The Maya considered that it was the “food of the gods” and used it as a sacred drink. It was very different from the sweet we know today, since it was prepared with cocoa in pieces, flour, chili, cinnamon and hot water, resulting in a dense and bitter mixture.
He had a presence in his rituals, but it was also used as an offering to ask for something from the gods, it could be used as a currency and even as a status symbol. The Aztecs refined the formula for something else, since they roasted the grains, grind them and mixed them with ingredients such as vanilla or aromatic flowers. Subsequently, they added hot water and thus the techocolat.
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Hello, Ecuador. But the two cultures had something in common: it was not a simple food. Although cocoa knew that it appeared in the high Amazon, in regions that are now Ecuador and Colombia, the domestication of the plant occurred thanks to Mesoamerican societies. But, as we say, recent studies have put this belief legs above. Researchers and archaeologists at the University of Berkeley, from the University of Columbia Britanic and the French Development Research Institute
According to the first, traces of cocoa uses in containers of about 5,300 years ago indicate that the civilizations that inhabited these tropical jungles already gave use to cocoa well as food, or as an offering. This indicates that its use dates back about 1,500 years to which we considered the first in the Mesoamerican civilizations.
Archeococin. It all started with the discovery of elaborate ceramics that would have belonged to the May-Chinchipe culture, which occupied the Western Amazon about 5,500 years ago. Michael Blake is one of the researchers and commented in Science that these vessels were similar to those used to make cocoa. That was when he asked his colleagues “Is there any possibility that these vessels were used to make cocoa?” And the answer was “nobody has proven it.”
He assumed the task and, by scraping different parts of the containers, they found that there were remains of starch with a composition that is only seen in the pods of the seeds of the cocoa tree. They also found theobromine, a compound present in mature cocoa seeds. Thus, they could affirm that this civilization was already doing cocoa routinely before Mesoamerican cultures.
Evidence of the first areas that used cocoa
Domestication or non -domestication? Rosemary Joyce is a researcher at the University of Berkeley who has studied for years the origin of cocoa and its deep relationship with Mesoamerican cultures. It is important because he commented on this joint study between several universities and, although he found unquestionable that this Ecuadorian culture already worked cocoa, he asked if they really managed to domesticate the plant.
Because there is an important difference between using the seeds found sporadically and really having an industry supported by the plant. This domestication of cocoa is something that is also being investigated thoroughly and, before the study we mentioned, another that dated domestication 3,600 years ago in Central America was published.
Blake and his colleagues are convinced that it was the inhabitants of South America who domesticated the plant due to the amount of different artifacts in which they found traces of cocoa elaborations.
Impact on Mexican identity. Joyce, who was not very convinced with the new theory of domestication in Ecuador, commented in a later article that “after decades of research, new discoveries show that one of the most widely repeated statements, such as that cocoa cultivation began in Mexico or Central America, should be reviewed.”
And a question that may arise is how these discoveries affect Mexican identity, which for hundreds of years consolidated their predecessors such as those who dominated the cocoa plant and began using their fruits to make food. The answer is … that something like this should not be a cultural earthquake.
That traces of early cocoa use in another totally different area are an archaeological achievement and that continues to teach us about the civilizations of the past, but it will “invent” that invented it, the relevance of cocoa between Mesoamerican cultures is indisputable, being a pride for Mexico.
Spread. Now the mystery is to match that first crop in the area of Ecuador and the arrival of plants to Mesoamerica. Joyce considers that, with these revelations, “a new stage begins in the history of cocoa: to link its early history in South America with that of Central America and Mexico.”
In the 2018 Science study, the researchers already affirmed that the search for that relationship is something that they should study more thoroughly ”, since the current mystery is how cocoa trees made that trip of thousands of kilometers until they reached Central America. The cocoa seeds quickly lose their viability, so they are not easy to transport and that are reproduced in a new land (especially with the methods they had thousands of years ago).
In the end, the finding does not take importance to the role of cocoa in the Mesoamerican culture, but it does enriches the history of the plant itself and gives us clues to throw for future investigations.
Images | UC Berkeley
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