Chemical and archaeological evidence for the earliest cacao beverages

doi:10.1073/pnas.0708815104

Chemical and archaeological evidence for the earliest cacao beverages

*Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, McGraw Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853;
^‡Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
^§Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, PA 19104; and
^¶Hershey Foods Technical Center, P.O. Box 805, Hershey, PA 17033

Edited by Joyce Marcus, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, and approved October 8, 2007 (received for review September 17, 2007)

Abstract

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.

Footnotes

^†To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jsh6{at}cornell.edu
Author contributions: J.S.H. and R.A.J. designed research; J.S.H., R.A.J., and P.E.M. performed research; J.S.H., R.A.J., G.R.H., W.J.H., and P.E.M. analyzed data; and J.S.H., R.A.J., and P.E.M. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0708815104/DC1.