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Cacao Residues in Vessels from Chocolá, an Early Maya

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Cacao Residues in Vessels from Chocolá, an Early Maya Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 13 (2017) 526–534 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep Cacao residues in vessels from Chocolá, an early Maya polity in the southern Guatemalan piedmont, determined by semi-quantitative testing and high- MARK performance liquid chromatography ⁎ ⁎⁎ Jonathan Kaplana, , Federico Paredes Umañab, ,W.Jeffrey Hurstc, D. Sund, Bruce Stanleyd, Luis Barba Pingarróne, Mauricio Obregon Cardonaf a Proyecto Arqueológico Chocolá (PACH), ECA Chocolá, San Pablo Jocopilas, Guatemala b PACH, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico c University of New Mexico, United States d Hershey Medical Center, Mauricio Obregón Cardona, Laboratorio de Prospección Arqueológica IIA, UNAM, Mexico e Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, UNAM, Mexico f Laboratorio de Prospeccion Arqueologica IIA, UNAM, Mexico ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Adding to a thus far limited number of archaeological identifications of cacao residues in pottery in ancient Cacao Mesoamerica, this study presents the first such evidence from the southern Guatemalan piedmont in the Maya Southern Maya Region. To save on cost, an original sample of 150 vessels from the site of Chocolá was reduced to Southern Maya Region 43 using semi-quantitative testing to determine the presence of fatty acids and carbohydrates, indicating plant High-performance liquid chromatography remains. Including these 43, because of Hershey's generosity, all 150 samples were analyzed by high- HPLC performance liquid chromatography by the method of Hurst (Hurst et al. 1989, Hurst et al. 2002 and Powis Semi-quantitative testing SQT et al. 2002). Cacao residues were found in ten vessels, or 6.7% of the 150 HPLC tested samples: (23.5% of the SQT-reduced sample) five bowls, three jars, and two plates, ranging in date from ca. 600 BCE–200 CE. Of the three sectors of the site, elite, administrative, and commoner/agricultural, distribution of all but one of the vessels was in the first and third sectors, suggesting consumption patterns in the ancient city and possibly, also, early intensive prehispanic arboriculture of cacao. 1. Our research at the Chocolá site 2005:950). From 2003 to 2005,1 the Proyecto Arqueológico Chocolá (PACH), Our research thus far has identified Chocolá as having a principally now directed by Kaplan and Paredes Umaña, undertook lengthy field Preclassic site core extending at least 1 × 4.5 k (Fig. 1). Located in the seasons (Kaplan and Valdés, 2003, Kaplan et al., 2004a, 2004b, Kaplan northern center of the Southern Maya Region (SMR, Love and Kaplan, and Valdés, 2004, Kaplan and Ugarte, 2005, Kaplan, 2008, Kaplan and 2011) Chocolá is 30 k east of another early, large and consequential Paredes Umaña, in press). Previously, Chocolá was known almost Maya city, Takalik Abaj, approximately its sister in size and possessing entirely only because of a fragment of a low-relief carved basalt the same kind of very sophisticated Preclassic water control system monument, Chocolá Monument 1 (Jones, 1986), a mirror in style and (Marroquín, 2005) (see below). Chocolá is equidistant to the west, to content to another monument, Stela 10, a masterfully carved oversized Izapa, another large Preclassic polity and, to the east, to Kaminaljuyu, basalt ruler throne bearing an early hieroglyphic text from Kaminaljuyu the latter with a water control system very similar to Chocolá and (Kaplan, 1995), the largest Preclassic city in the southern Maya area. Takalik Abaj (Kaplan et al., 2004a, 2004b; Paredes Umaña et al. One focus of PACH's investigations has been to find evidence that ⁎ Correspondence to: J. Kaplan, 6640 Littlerock Rd SW, Tumwater, WA 98512, United States. ⁎⁎ Correspondence to: F. Paredes Umaña, Av. Universidad # 300, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales Centro de Estudios Antropológicos, Edificio C # 316, Mexico. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Kaplan), [email protected] (F. Paredes Umaña). 1 Well-funded research was slated to continue in 2006; however, despite our efforts to negotiate a compromise, threats to Earthwatch volunteers incited by evangelical church pastors seeking to flout Guatemala's cultural heritage laws in order to build new churches among the mounds halted the investigations. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.04.017 Received 2 April 2017; Accepted 9 April 2017 2352-409X/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. J. Kaplan et al. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 13 (2017) 526–534 Fig. 1. Site map also indicates by shaded circles the locations of mound structures where samples were found testing positive for cacao residues. Chocolá participated in early long-distance trade of intensively culti- more, became the large, wealthy city and regional polity we believe it vated cacao.2 Here we report remnant cacao residues in ten vessels grew to become by the Late Middle Preclassic Period or ca. 500 BCE. In (Fig. 2) recovered during the fieldwork undertaken in the first three 2014, a palaeobotanical subproject found evidence of trees traditionally years of PACH's research, the first evidence for cacao use in a subregion serving to provide shade for cacao cultivation (Trabanino, in press, and – the southern piedmont of Guatemala - which we propose contained a see Cano and Hellmuth, 2008). In support of the presumption that major heartland for cacao production in Mesoamerica (Fig. 3), where, Chocolá became large and substantial as a polity, Paredes Umaña's just to the north of which, Chocolá was centrally located (Kaplan and research expanded Chocolá's monumental corpus to at least 30 carved Paredes Umaña, in press, cf. Kaplan and Valdés, 2004:78). Reanalysis of sculptures (Paredes Umaña, 2006). Mapping in 2003 determined the data reported in this paper corrects results reported in an earlier paper minimum size of Chocolá's core as similar to another large and (Paredes Umaña et al., 2016). substantial early polity near Chocolá, Takalik Abaj. Before beginning the field research at Chocolá, on a visit in 2000, Before beginning fieldwork, Kaplan also observed that the very Kaplan observed that cacao trees were cultivated in small gardens copious rainfall (over six m per annum) must have required water around and behind the houses of the modern village and nearby. It was management during the early stages of building the city; the fourth test tempting, at that time, to speculate that intensive cultivation of cacao pit excavated in 2003 revealed evidence of a what soon became by the ancient Chocolenses for surplus production and trade could apparent, a large-scale highly sophisticated water control system explain, at least in part, why Chocolá, with its reported 100 mounds or consisting of subterranean stone conduits and a redistribution box situated to intake any of nine natural springs to the north of the ancient city. Accordingly, we suggest that the bureaucracy necessary would 2 Although town informants do not ascribe the present-day name, Chocolá, to an thus have been in place for intensive cultivation of cacao, a high water- etymology from the Classic Maya word for cacao, transliterated as kakawa, some have demand tree, and also for the creation of reservoirs to distribute water suggested such a link (Kaplan and Valdés, 2004:85; see Coe and Coe, 2013:65). 527 J. Kaplan et al. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 13 (2017) 526–534 Fig. 2. Ten vessels found positive for cacao by HPLC in ceramic samples previously selected through SQT. Fig. 3. Map showing ancient "Cacao Heartland" in Soconusco, Suchitepequez, and Izalcos in the Southern Maya Region, plus other areas of cacao production; also shown are the major southern area sites of Kaminaljuyu, Takalik Abaj, and Izapa, as well as the sites in the SMR thus far identified with ceramic samples found positive by HPLC for cacao, Paso de la Amado, San Lorenzo, and Puerto Escondido. 528 J. Kaplan et al. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 13 (2017) 526–534 to groves during the long dry season in the flatter lands just south of the Table 1 city core (Kaplan and Valdés, 2003; Kaplan, 2008). Quantity and percentages of vessel forms identified from sherds selected for SQT pretesting. 2. The importance of cacao in ancient Mesoamerica and to the Vessel shape Quantity Percentage Maya Bowl 70 47 Jar/open mouth 28 19 The importance of cacao in ancient Mesoamerica and to the ancient Plate 22 15 Maya particularly is well known (Coe and Coe, 2013, papers in McNeil High neck jar/cántaro 12 8 et al., 2006, Martin, 2006). In cuisine, trade, and ideology cacao played Vase 6 4 a special role during Classic Maya times (200–900 CE), as evidenced in Censer 3 2 hieroglyphic texts on pottery and from depictions in painted murals, Tecomate/neckless jar 2 1 Pan 2 1 carved portable objects, and other media (see, e.g., Martin, 2012), and Unidentified 5 3 in the mural in Room 1, Structure 1, Bonampak, five 8000-bean bundles Total 150 100 of cacao are identified by glyphs (Miller and O′Neil 2014:219). In Postclassic times (ca. 900–1500 CE), Maya codices attest still further to the great importance of cacao in Maya material and ideological sheet with detailed documentation, registry and description of form, culture.3 Evidence also comes from scenes accompanying texts in the paste, attributes, photographs and drawings was prepared to ensure Maya and other Mesoamerican codices, including the Dresden, Madrid, that the samples' identifications were not lost during transport and Magliabechiano, Tudela, and Nuttall codices. For example, the Dresden processing in Mexico and then at Hershey. In the field lab from each Codex includes scenes of deity figures holding cacao pods or standing or sherd a small subsample (average, 5.7 g) was obtained from the sitting near bowls and plates containing cacao beans. The Late shoulder or the base of the vessel, where heated liquids would have Postclassic Madrid Codex illustrates birds eating cacao pods, deity penetrated or coated the clay.
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