Traders brought Central American cacao to Georgia 1,000 years ago
"We built this city on good cacao" does have a nice ring to it.
In 11th-century Georgia, feast-goers enjoyed cacao from Central America, according to ancient evidence discovered at Etowah, an Indigenous city near present-day Atlanta. Potsherds, discarded after these feasts, contained traces of cacao, a key component in chocolate. The chemical residue and ancient DNA found on these pottery fragments indicate that the Mississippian people, who constructed the city, had extensive trade connections extending at least 3,000 kilometers to Central America.
This discovery suggests that chocolate, derived from cacao, may have played a role in the development of Mississippian mounds. The ancient DNA fragments came from the inner surfaces of the pottery, revealing the presence of Theobroma cacao, a tropical tree that grows in the tropics. Consequently, the Mississippian people who inhabited Etowah must have established far-reaching trade networks to acquire cacao beans from a distant region.
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