Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

[Lawnmower Boy]

Archaeologists take a while to get things published, so here's the scoop: analysis of residue in a cup found at the Chaco Canyon Peublo site in New Mexico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaco_Canyon) has found chocolate. Archaeologists have long thought argued about the extent of "Mexicanism" at this site, actively occupied by the 'Anasazi,' between 950 and 1150AD.

Now we know that they traded south for luxury goods such as cacao beans.

http://gamblershouse.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/reevaluating-mexicanism-in-the-post-chocolate-era/

Which is, of course, why the lost city of the Jaguar People is hidden in the canyons of New Mexico.

 

(The poor Eagle People, on the other hand, had to settle for Glendale, AZ, and is currently cleverly disguised as a middle-class suburb. "Beaver, if you run out into the cul-de-sac one more time, your father will sacrifice you to the Humming Bird God of War when he gets .... I mean, ground you!"

[LordGhee]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Here in El Paso Tx, we have a hill east of us that over looks the Rio Grande river and the pass east, on it artifacts were found that are Aztec, the owner got wind of the find and bulldozed the top.

 

so it looks like the Aztec most north outpost was here.

 

Lord Ghee

[Karmakaze]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Here in El Paso Tx' date=' we have a hill east of us that over looks the Rio Grande river and the pass east, on it artifacts were found that are Aztec, the owner got wind of the find and bulldozed the top.[/quote']

 

Why?

[lemming]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Why?

 

Just a guess:

 

He wouldn't of been able to develop it until the dig was completed is my guess, but if it hadn't been established as a historic site, he made sure it wouldn't be.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Just a guess:

 

He wouldn't have been able to develop it until the dig was completed is my guess, but if it hadn't been established as a historic site, he made sure it wouldn't be.

 

My guess, too, and the amount of history that's been destroyed by similar practices always raises my hackles.

 

Several related cultures comprised the Puebloan Peoples, each with their own territory, as seen on this map of the Ancient Pueblo Peoples, or "Anasazi." It's long been believed that trade and cultural influences existed between the southernmost of these cultures, the Mogollon, and Meso-America; but this is the first evidence I've heard of those connections reaching as far north as Chaco Canyon.

[Narratio]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Apart from Chocolate, any ideas what else came north? Art, religion, any big cultural links that show continuous communications?

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Evidence of cultural links is mostly artistic style, from surviving artifacts. Take for example this passage from the Wikipedia article I linked to: "The pottery produced in the Mimbres region, often finely painted bowls, is distinct in style and is decorated with geometric designs and figurative paintings of animals, people and cultural icons in black paint on a white background. Some of these images suggest familiarity and relationships with cultures in northern and central Mexico."

 

Since these peoples left no written records, and most of their descendants have disappeared or changed so much that even oral records are sketchy, there's no current way to tell how much cross-culturing actually occurred.

[Peregrine]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

My guess, too, and the amount of history that's been destroyed by similar practices always raises my hackles.

 

Whereas the violation of property rights that motivates such behavior always raises my hackles. Fair compensation would prevent a lot of this behavior.

[Burrito Boy]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

This article just goes to prove my wild belief that the Anasazi were the Mexica, the tribe who later settled in Mexico and changed their name to Azteca. Score one for uninformed guesses.

 

It's also really cool for me because I used to live in Aztec and Farmington, New Mexico. And having some Aztec blood, I'm proud to know how much everybody loves chocolate.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Whereas the violation of property rights that motivates such behavior always raises my hackles. Fair compensation would prevent a lot of this behavior.

Point taken.

 

This article just goes to prove my wild belief that the Anasazi were the Mexica' date=' the tribe who later settled in Mexico and changed their name to Azteca. Score one for uninformed guesses. [/quote']

 

Doesn't prove anything of the sort, or course, but would be cool if true, not to mention making for an interesting archaeological game plot.

 

It's also really cool for me because I used to live in Aztec and Farmington' date=' New Mexico. And having some Aztec blood, I'm proud to know how much everybody loves chocolate. [/quote']

 

You can also take pride in everyone who wears cotton or latex. (Although that latter one has its darker side... )

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Apart from Chocolate' date=' any ideas what else came north? Art, religion, any big cultural links that show continuous communications?[/quote']

 

The residue is found in cylindrical vessels that are very unusual at Chaco Canyon and very like the ones used to consume chocolate in the Mayan city states. This was used as evidence of "Mexicanism" even before the residues were found.

So, in short, we have confirmation that a lifeway --a ritual, a method for preparing chocolate, an expected magical outcome, even?-- was transmitted with the beans.

This is similar to the arguments now being made for tripods in Eurasia and Hopewell bowls in the East. The wares are evidence of the spread of wine drinking/libation and Black Drink,* but also of the ceremonies and some of the cultural apparatus that went with them. In Eurasia we can put our finger on the spread of chariot warfare as linked to tripods. In the New World there's nothing quite so neat and simple.

 

*Coca-Cola! (Well, not really, but the coincidence does strike me. These things persist.... )

[Kristopher]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Archaeologists take a while to get things published' date=' so here's the scoop: analysis of residue in a cup found at the Chaco Canyon Peublo site in New Mexico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaco_Canyon) has found chocolate.[/quote']

 

I guess they'll need to rename it Choco Canyon.

[Burrito Boy]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

This article just goes to prove my wild belief that the Anasazi were the Mexica, the tribe who later settled in Mexico and changed their name to Azteca. Score one for uninformed guesses.

 

Doesn't prove anything of the sort, of course, but would be cool if true, not to mention making for an interesting archaeological game plot.

 

I actually base my theory on the areas where the Uto-Aztecan language group is found.

[McCoy]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Apart from Chocolate' date=' any ideas what else came north? Art, religion, any big cultural links that show continuous communications?[/quote']

Off the top of my head, I seem to recall several sites having feathers and bones from tropical birds. I want to say parrots, but not sure if that's right.

[Kristopher]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Materials from tropical plants and animals have been found in cites in the NE United States, IIRC, implying at least some trade reaching that far.

[AnotherSkip]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

Whereas the violation of property rights that motivates such behavior always raises my hackles. Fair compensation would prevent a lot of this behavior.

 

Yeah and degreed Achaeologists get dirt for pay, part of the reason why I stopped wanting to become one. fair compensation should start with reasonable pay for the guys doing the work rather than the privledge of digging.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

I actually base my theory on the areas where the Uto-Aztecan language group is found.

 

Yes, but that begs the question of how language is spread in the first place. The genetic claim is that where you find two separate groups speaking similar languages, you assume a link in deep time -classically, a migration story. The Aztecs came from the Bering Strait via Wisconsin, dropped off their language in New Mexico, and then sauntered down to the Valley to get all civilised.

To start with this story requires constraints on how languages change, because if you go to the border of China and Russia, you will find people talking some kind of Chino-Russian. So the old-time linguist says that place-names are borrowed, but fundamentals like verbs and the like are not. As actual examples disproved these constraints, the prehistoric comparative linguists have moved on to word lists, on the assumption that two isolated languages are "related" when they share a statistically significant number of words like "blue," "thumb," and "Mom, he's copying me!" That approach hasn't worked out particularly well, either, and in any case I doubt that much of the interview process would stand up under more rigorous evidentiary standards.

(For example, the claim that some Northern Californian Indians spoke an Algonquin language is scientifically established now. The languages are extinct, and all we have are the transcripts of interviews conducted decades ago. So, case closed. Unfortunately, the interviews were with a single, elderly speaker, by a single researcher who expected to find widespread language families and spoke Algonquin. Imagine the fuss in the press if Texas tried to execute someone on this kind of testimony! Fortunately, colouring a splotch on your "language map of North America" Algonquin magenta has less drastic consequences.)*

On the other hand, take the proximity case, for a moment. Is there reason to think that Ute-Aztecan speakers in the Southwest were influenced by Nahuatl speakers in historic times? There is: abundant evidence of influence at multiple levels. Not only were Nahuatal speakers the main carriers of Spanish Mexican imperialism, they were active precisely as the missionaries who wrote the first grammars and dictionaries of these languages. So even if the story of the Aztec "migration from the north" were an acceptable reading of Aztec myth-history (a less forced reading has them as the last born of Teotihuacan), we would have to wonder whether this were not an example of productive myth. In most preliterate societies one can find two (or more) competing origin stories, in one of which the people are autochthonous in their location, in the other, migrants from some other place. The reason? The stories aren't about the ancient past, but rather motivate specific contemporary political positions.

And if my skeptical source deconstruction depresses you, perhaps you might want to reconsider your opposition to archaeological excavations as a precondition to development. We can know more about these things that interest you so much. The evidence is there. We just have to investigate it.

 

 

 

*If you think that's questionable, your "language map" will probably show a splotch of Siouxian speakers in the Carolinas, including the Catawba, who are a special case, and two nations whose language is only known from word lists compiled by a nineteenth century clergyman from conversations with elderly Indians who had known speakers of these languages in their youth. Imagine reconstructing the syntax and grammar of German based on the words you remember from reading Sergeant Rock and The Invaders!

[Burrito Boy]

Re: Chocolate in Pre-Columbian New Mexico

 

I think what Lawnmower Boy was trying to say is, "You got Ute in my Aztec." "You got Aztec in my Ute."