March 28, 2024, 07:42:48 pm
Welcome,
Guest
. Please
login
or
register
.
1 Hour
1 Day
Forever
Login with username, password and session length
News
: Hunt for Lost City of Atlantis
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3227295.stm
Home
Help
Arcade
Gallery
Links
Staff List
Calendar
Login
Register
Cacao Craving May Explain 3000-Year Occupation Of Honduran Village
Atlantis Online
>
Forum
>
Earth Changes
>
Botany & Plant Life
>
Plants of the Americas that Changed the World
>
Cacao Craving May Explain 3000-Year Occupation Of Honduran Village
Pages: [
1
]
Go Down
« previous
next »
Print
Author
Topic: Cacao Craving May Explain 3000-Year Occupation Of Honduran Village (Read 110 times)
0 Members and 111 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
Posts: 41646
Cacao Craving May Explain 3000-Year Occupation Of Honduran Village
«
on:
November 07, 2008, 08:49:20 am »
Cacao Craving May Explain 3000-Year Occupation Of Honduran Village
ScienceDaily
(Oct. 9, 1998) —
ITHACA, N.Y. --
Digging through history to a time before agriculture, archaeologists from Cornell University and the University
of California at Berkeley have found evidence of a village that was continuously occupied from 2000 B.C. to
A.D. 1000 as well as hints to the secret of the community's remarkable longevity.
"My guess is, it all comes down to chocolate," says John S. Henderson, professor of anthropology at Cornell and
co-director, together with Rosemary Joyce of Berkeley, of the archaeological dig at Puerto Escondido, Honduras. The type of ceremonial pottery uncovered by the archaeologists points to that region of Mesoamerica as a possible "Cradle of Chocolate."
Excavations in the lower Ulúa river valley of northwestern Honduras, conducted by the North American scientists under the auspices of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, have added at least 1,000 years to the documented story of a region where a hunting-and-gathering society settled and skilled pottery-makers flourished.
"Our deepest excavations at Puerto Escondido show building activity and obsidian tools but no pottery," Henderson says. "The pottery we're finding, dating between about 1100 and 900 B.C., shares the shape and decorative style
of pottery from communities to the west, in present-day Mexico -- the Olmec art style of Mesoamerica's first civilization." The same site also is yielding pre-Olmec pottery made between 1600 and 1100 B.C., the earliest known period of pottery-making in Meso- and upper-Central America.
The author of "The World of the Ancient Maya" (Cornell University Press, 1997), Henderson says the Olmec people rose from the Neolithic culture of Mesoamerica and held forth until about 500 B.C., at which time the later and better-known civilizations of the Maya, Zapotec and Teotihuacanos were in their formative stages. Olmecs are generally associated with the Veracruz and Tabasco regions of Mexico, and the Puerto Escondido discoveries make that ancient village the eastern-most known site
of Olmec activity.
One possible explanation for similar pottery styles is trade among geographically separated peoples. The question
for Henderson and Joyce became: What social mechanisms were responsible for the similarities in pottery?
"Trade is a typical interpretation," says Joyce, the director of the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology and associate professor of anthropology at UC-Berkeley. "But we suggest a more complex web of social relations, possibly centering on marriage relations between prominent families in separate areas. Access to Ulúa valley cacao would be an important factor motivating distant partners."
Report Spam
Logged
Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
Posts: 41646
Re: Cacao Craving May Explain 3000-Year Occupation Of Honduran Village
«
Reply #1
on:
November 07, 2008, 08:50:37 am »
"Historic records show that when the Spaniards arrived, the best chocolate in all of Mexico and Central America was growing in the Ulúa valley," Henderson says, noting that the finest cocoa beans come only from intense cultivation and special preparation techniques. "Cocoa beans were so valuable, they were a form of currency for the Aztecs, the late Maya and presumably their predecessors. It was a place where money literally grew on trees."
Adding to evidence of the "chocolatl" connection (to use the Aztec word for "warm liquid") is the type of pottery archaeologists are finding at Puerto Escondido: small, delicate vessels used for drinking. Not surprisingly, the Cornell and Berkeley archaeologists also are finding heavier, more utilitarian pots for cooking and food storage. But it is the delicate pottery, with its similarity to styles found farther to the West, that proves most intriguing.
Many of the small Olmec vessels are decorated with symbols of the supernatural, indicating their ceremonial use in rituals by the elite of the community, Joyce and Henderson report. Most likely, Henderson says, the royal liquid in the Olmec ceremonial vessels was "chocolatl", centuries later craved by Emperor Montezuma, who reportedly drank 50 portions a day.
"The Ulúa valley was an ideal place to grow "cacao", which needs the understory shade of other trees and rich soil," Henderson says, adding that the valley also was a likely gateway for the introduction of "cacao", which is native to South America, to Mexico and upper Central America. The rich, alluvial soil has been accumulating in the Ulúa valley for thousands of years and is found between successive levels of occupation in the village Henderson and Joyce are excavating. Newer and newer versions of the community, they have determined, were built upon the burned or flooded remains of the previous ones.
As they prepare to resume excavations at Puerto Escondido in 1999 and puzzle over the discoveries made so far, the Berkeley and Cornell archaeologists sometimes mix up a mug of instant cocoa. It is a poor imitation of the elite drink they believe may have drawn together distant peoples for 3,000 years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adapted from materials provided by Cornell University.
Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats:
APA
MLA Cornell University (1998, October 9). Cradle Of Chocolate? Cacao Craving May Explain 3000-Year Occupation Of Honduran Village, Archaeologists Say. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 6, 2008, from
http://www.sciencedaily.com
/releases/1998/10/981009081844.htm
Report Spam
Logged
Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Pages: [
1
]
Go Up
Print
« previous
next »
Jump to:
Please select a destination:
-----------------------------
Atlantis Online - Messages
-----------------------------
=> Messages
=> Administrative Messages
=> Commemorating Dates in History
=> Alerts & Warnings
=> Upcoming Events, Releases & Ads
=> Television: Shows & Events
-----------------------------
the Coffee Shop
-----------------------------
=> the Coffee Shop
=> Atlantis: Polls & News
=> Poltical Alerts
=> Causes & Activism
-----------------------------
Videos, Documentaries & Online Movies
-----------------------------
=> Ancient History & Lost Civilizations
=> Ghosts, UFOs & the Esoteric
=> Music, Entertainment & the Arts
=> Conspiracies & Suppressed Knowledge
=> Documentary & Videos
-----------------------------
Ages of the Earth
-----------------------------
=> The Early Earth, Geology & Fossils
=> Dinosaurs
=> Catastrophes & Mass Extinctions
=> Ice Age
=> Humanity's Origins & Civilization's First Steps
-----------------------------
Mythology & Heroic Sagas of Culture & Myth
-----------------------------
=> Mythology
=> Greek Mythology
=> Arthurian Myth
=> Quest for King Arthur
-----------------------------
Atlantis
-----------------------------
=> Atlantis & the Atlantic Ocean
=> Atlantis: Theories & Speculation
=> Plato's Atlantis
=> the Scientific Atlantis
=> Geology & Atlantis
=> Atlantis & the New Age
=> Atlantis in the Media
-----------------------------
Satellite Discoveries & Alternate Archaeology
-----------------------------
=> Alternate Archaeology
=> Satellite Discoveries & Aerial Archaeology
=> the Bock Saga
-----------------------------
Maps, Explorers & Adventurers
-----------------------------
=> the Oceans
=> Islands
=> the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cuba & the West Indies
=> Explorers & Adventurers
=> Maps, Cartographers & Cartography
-----------------------------
Egypt & the Pyramids
-----------------------------
=> Gods of Egypt
=> Egypt & the Pyramids
=> the Giza Complex
=> the Dynasties of Egypt
=> Egypt: Latest Discoveries
-----------------------------
the Guanches, Basques, Berbers & Sea People
-----------------------------
=> Guanches, Basques & Berbers
=> Pirates, Phantom Islands & Stories of the Sea
=> the Sea People
-----------------------------
the Ancient World
-----------------------------
=> Neolithic Europe
=> Stonehenge & the Druids
=> the Library of Alexandria, Ancient Historians & Philosophers
=> Ancient Warfare
=> the Spartans
-----------------------------
the Dawn of Civilization
-----------------------------
=> Africa, the Cradle of Life
=> China & the Asian Empires
=> Eastern Mysticism, India, & the Ancient Far East
=> Zoroastrianism, Arabia & the Near East
=> the Sumerians
=> Ancient Asia Minor
=> Hawaii, Australia, Alaska & the Pacific Rim
-----------------------------
Ancient Mediterranean Cultures
-----------------------------
=> Minoan Crete
=> Phoenicians & Carthage
=> Mediterranean Islands
=> Israelities & the Kabbalah
=> Etruscans
=> Ancient Greece
=> Rome: Empire & Republic
-----------------------------
Ancient European Cultures
-----------------------------
=> The Picts & Celts
=> Ireland: History & Myths
=> Balkan History
=> Italy & Magna Graecia
=> the Vikings & Scandinavia
=> Germanic History
-----------------------------
Timelines of Ancient Europe
-----------------------------
=> History of Britain
=> Scotland: in History & Lore
=> Continental Europe: Past & Present
=> the Dark Ages
=> the Medieval World
=> The Renaissance
-----------------------------
the Ancient Americas
-----------------------------
=> the Ancient Americas
=> Peru: Mysteries & Prehistory
=> Mesoamerican & South American Cultures
===> Aztec
===> Incan
===> Olmec
===> Toltec & Teotihuacan
=> Mayan
=> Native American
=> Canada: Past & Present
-----------------------------
The Crusades, Templars & the Holy Grail
-----------------------------
=> the Crusades
=> the Knights Templar
=> The Holy Grail & Christian artifacts
=> The Sacred Feminine, the Cathars & Gnosticism
=> the Da Vinci Code
-----------------------------
Ancient Mysteries
-----------------------------
=> Philosophy
=> Ancient Mysteries
=> Lemuria, Mu & other sunken civilizations
=> Easter Island
=> Oak Island
-----------------------------
Archaeology & Anthropology
-----------------------------
=> Museums & Universities
=> Archaeology
=> Ancient Languages
=> Archaeological News
=> Underwater Archaeology
-----------------------------
Ancient Knowledge, Mysticism & Sacred Beliefs
-----------------------------
=> Ley Lines, Ancient Astronomy & Archeoastronomy
=> Prophecy, 2012, End Times & the End of the World
=> Sacred Symbols
=> The Ancient Arts: Astrology, Alchemy, the Tarot, Arcane Recondite Practices & the I Ching
-----------------------------
Search for the Sacred
-----------------------------
=> Angels & Angelology
=> Goddess Worship
=> Search for the Sacred
=> World Religions
=> the Urantia Book
=> Wicca, Witchcraft, Paganism & Ritual Magic
-----------------------------
Health & Healing
-----------------------------
=> Health, Healing & Medical News
=> Human Biology
=> Love & Relationships
=> Women's Studies
-----------------------------
Science & Technology
-----------------------------
=> Science, Physics & Technology
=> History of Science
=> Evolution vs. Intelligent Design
=> Human Genetics
-----------------------------
Earth Changes
-----------------------------
=> Earth Changes
=> Global Warming
=> Botany & Plant Life
===> Plants of the Americas that Changed the World
=> Antarctica & the Arctic
-----------------------------
Space
-----------------------------
=> NASA
=> Mars, the Red Planet
=> Life on Other Worlds
=> the Universe
=> Images from Space
-----------------------------
UFOs, Aliens & Future Science
-----------------------------
=> UFO's
=> Aliens & Alien Abduction
=> UFO Evidence & in the Media
=> Alternate History & Multiverses
=> Future Science
=> Time Travel
-----------------------------
the Occult
-----------------------------
=> Ghosts & Apparitions
=> Communicating with the Dead
=> Paranormal Events, Reincarnation & Near Death Experiences
=> the Enchanted World
=> the Supernatural
=> the Occult
-----------------------------
the Unexplained
-----------------------------
=> Cryptozoology
=> Bigfoot Sightings
=> the Unexplained
=> the Hollow Earth, Crop Circles, Strange Structures & Devices
=> Vanishings & Unsolved Murders
-----------------------------
Science Fiction & Fantasy
-----------------------------
=> Lord of the Rings
=> Science Fiction
=> King Kong, Gigantopithecus & the Mountain Gorilla
=> Godzilla, King of Monsters
=> Comic Books
===> Comic Book Creators
===> Videogames & Toys
-----------------------------
Halloween & Seasonal
-----------------------------
=> Halloween
=> Seasonal
=> Monsters of Myth, Movies & Folklore
=> Ghost Stories
=> the Zombie Apocalypse
-----------------------------
Genres of Film & Literature
-----------------------------
=> Universal Horror
=> H. P. Lovecraft
=> Horror
=> Dark Shadows
=> Twin Peaks
=> Online Horror Movies Sci-Fi & TV Series
-----------------------------
Arts & Literature
-----------------------------
=> Online Books & Research Papers
=> Classical Literature & Book Reviews
=> Art History
=> Architecture
=> Sculpture & Statuary
=> the Great Masters
=> Music
-----------------------------
Media & Film
-----------------------------
=> Cinema
=> the History of Film
=> Marilyn Monroe
=> Actresses & Models
=> Entertainment News
-----------------------------
Modern Historical Mysteries
-----------------------------
=> American History
===> Presidents of the United States
=> the World Wars
===> the Great Depression
=> the Holocaust
=> the Middle East: Past & Present
=> Modern History
===> the Industrial Age
===> Civil Rights
=> Great Cities of the World
=> the Kennedys: Their History & Assasinations
=> New York City: Then & Now
-----------------------------
September 11th, 2001
-----------------------------
=> September 11th: Conspiracies, Cover-ups & Remembrance
=> The World Trade Center Remembered
===> Life of the Twin Towers
=> Modern Warfare
=> Environmental Disasters & Mass Tragedies
-----------------------------
Suppressed Knowledge
-----------------------------
=> New World Order
=> Conspiracies
=> Suppressed Knowledge
=> Media Matters
-----------------------------
Politics
-----------------------------
=> the Barack Obama Administration
=> Conservatives, Trump, & Republican Politics
=> Joe Biden, Democratic Politics & News
=> Tea Party, Constitution, Libertarian Parties & Ron Paul
=> Politics & News
-----------------------------
Current Events
-----------------------------
=> Current Events & Odd Stories
=> The World Today
=> Financial News & the Economy
===> The History of Labor
=> Breaking News
-----------------------------
General Category
-----------------------------
=> Opinions & Editorials
=> Cartoons, Humor & Comic Strips
=> Ecology, Pets & the Animal Kingdom
=> General & Miscellaneous
=> Sports
=> Computers & the Internet
-----------------------------
Art, Graphics & Creative Writing
-----------------------------
=> Fantasy Art & Graphics
=> Creative Writing
===> Horror Fiction
=> Poetry
=> Photography & Models
=> Earth Images
-----------------------------
Past Events
-----------------------------
=> Case for Bush Impeachment/War Crimes
===> Bush Administration Torture Scandal
=> Campaign 2008
=> Atlantis Online - Memorial & Biography
===> Atlantis Online - Old Posts
Powered by
EzPortal
Loading...