Study: cocoa originated in South America, not Mexico

11-03-24

A group of scientists has traced the origin, domestication and use of cacao and reaffirms that the plant (Theobroma cacao) did not originate in Central America, but rather in South America, details a study published Thursday (07.03.2024) by the journal Scientific Reports.

T. cacao is a tropical evergreen tree that produces large oval capsules with cocoa beans inside, which are used to make chocolate, liquor and cocoa butter.

Origin located in Ecuador

The researchers analyzed residues detected in more than 300 pre-Columbian pottery dating back almost 6,000 years from South and Central America. The idea was to find traces of cacao DNA and three related chemical compounds, including caffeine.

Following their analysis, the scientists discovered that the rapid spread of cacao along trade routes after its domestication occurred more than five millennia ago in Ecuador. The evidence shows the spread of cacao along the Pacific Northwest coast of South America and then through Central America, until it reached Mexico 1,500 years later.

"It was previously believed that cacao was domesticated in the lowlands of Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) and that from there it spread southward," says archaeologist and co-author of the study, Francisco Valdez. However, now "we can state categorically that the origin of cocoa and its domestication was in the Upper Amazon and not in the tropics of Mesoamerica," say the authors.

Widespread use in pre-Columbian cultures

The remains found in the ceramics indicate that the use of cocoa products was more widespread among these ancient pre-Columbian cultures than previously known. For example, of the 19 cultures studied, ceramics from the Valdivia (Ecuador) and Puerto Hormiga (Colombia) cultures show some of the earliest uses of cocoa.

Another study published in 2018 had already placed the domestication and use of cacao around 5,300 years ago in Ecuador, based on ceramic evidence from the Santa Ana-La Florida archaeological site.