Talking about cocoa is talking about your Impact on Mesoamerican societies. Cocoa arrived in Mexico at some point in 1900 AC and esteem 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 They considered which 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.
Had presence In its 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 They refined Something else the formula, since they roasted the grains, grind them and mixed with ingredients such as vanilla or aromatic flowers. Subsequently, they added hot water and thus the Techocolat.
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 They have put this belief upside down. Researchers and archaeologists at the University of Berkeley, from the University of Columbia Britanic and the French Development Research Institute
According to him firsttraces 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 culture May-Chinchipewhich occupied the Western Amazon about 5,500 years ago. Michael Blake is one of the researchers and commented on Science that those 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 was already working 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 thoroughly being investigated and, before the study we mentioned, it was published other that dated domestication 3,600 years ago in Central America.
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 article Subsequent that “after decades of research, new discoveries show that one of the most widely repeated statements, such as 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 the early use of cocoa are traces in another totally different area is 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. Cocoa seeds They lose quickly 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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