PHILADELPHIA, March 17 (UPI) -- Chocolate may have been a driving factor in extensive trade between ancient northern and southern societies in the Americas, U.S. researchers say.
Scientists say Pueblo people living in what's now the U.S. Southwest drank a cacao-based beverage that was probably imported from Mesoamerican cultures in southern Mexico or Central America, ScienceNews.org reported Thursday.
Pueblo groups and subsequent Southwest societies traded turquoise for Mesoamerican cacao for about five centuries, from around 900 to 1400, archaeologist Dorothy Washburn of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia theorizes.
A chemical analysis of Pueblo vessels suggests large numbers of people throughout Pueblo society consumed cacao, from low-ranking farmers to elite residents of a multistory pueblo, she said.
"Since cacao was consumed by both Pueblo elites and non-elites, active trading for cacao must have occurred with Mesoamerican states," Washburn said.
Evidence of cacao drinking by Pueblo people surprised many archaeologists who have long assumed that cultures of the Southwest and Mesoamerica had minimal contact.
Previous Pueblo finds include macaw remains, copper bells and decorative items that must have come from Mesoamerica, archaeologist Ben Nelson of Arizona State University in Tempe said.
"To find that cacao consumption was much more widespread strengthens the case for regular exchange with populations in Mesoamerica," he said.
