Central American Cacao Traded to Georgia 1,000 Years Ago

A thousand years ago, feasts in what is now northern Georgia, USA, included cacao from Central America.

Potsherds discarded after an 11th-century feast at Etowah—an Indigenous city just north of what is now Atlanta, Georgia—contained traces of cacao, a raw ingredient of chocolate. Chemical residue and ancient DNA reveal that not only did the Mississippian people who built the city have excellent taste, they also had trade connections that reached at least 3,000 kilometers to Central America.

Archaeologist Adam King and colleagues from the University of South Carolina found fragments of ancient DNA from Theobroma cacao on the inner surfaces of potsherds from long-ago feasts at Etowah. Fruit from the cacao tree contains beans that, when dried and roasted, produce chocolate. Cacao only grows in the tropics, meaning the nearest actual cacao trees would have been at least a 3,000-kilometer trek from the woodlands of the eastern US, indicating continent-spanning trade networks.

The presence of cacao residue in Etowah's pottery shards offers new insights into the extensive trade routes of the Mississippian culture and their potential connections with civilizations further south. The discovery highlights the significance of ancient trade networks and their impact on food culture.