14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers from the University of New Mexico (UNM) and the Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition (HCHN) reported on Tuesday, in a recent edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that they've discovered the oldest known traces of chocolate in what is now the United States, and have added that the samples collected are over 1,000 years old. The evidence that proves the sweet stuff was also consumed in Northern America has been found near the city of Pueblo Bonito, in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.
Archaeological pieces of evidence have thus far proven that chocolate was extensively used in central America before the year 1000, especially in religious rituals such as weddings. But UNM researcher Patricia L. Crown says that the investigators have been unsure regarding how much the use of the sweet had spread, and how far away from central America it had reached. The new discovery has prompted the hypothesis that the inhabitants of the Chaco Canyon area were engaged in active trade with cocoa growers from what is now Latin America, which allowed for the spreading of chocolate northwards.
The remnants that have been found in New Mexico have been dated to around 1000-1250 AD, which makes them the oldest ever to be found in the area the US is currently located on. However, the new find has also yielded some questions, such as for instance how was the stuff carried? According to scientific estimates, the nearest cocoa plantation was more than 1,000 miles away, so this probably means that chocolate was a very luxurious good at the time, and that only the wealthy had access to it, and in very low supplies.
One possible way of transporting chocolate around could have been in Mayan jars, a specific type of vessel that is believed to have been especially designed to serve this purpose. In Central America, the use of the sweet dates back to around 1,500 BC, although, in all fairness, the stuff had no resemblance to today's product, as far as taste goes. Historical records even show that Central Americans even put chili peppers in their chocolate, so it probably had a very different savor than that we're used to.