Salt was popular as a trade item perhaps back into the stone age, as was obsidian. The silk route lay across the Asian interior and through some pretty heinous dens of thieves, yet it endured for thousands of years, and helped establish maritime trade between China and the Mediterranean as long ago as 3000 years.Cradle of Chocolate?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.
by Roger Segelken
Oct. 8, 1998
"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."
Most people connect choclate with our current blend of choclate and sugar. In its natural state, however, choclate is bitter rather than sweet (as anyone who's tried Mexican chicken mole can attest). Sugar was not native to the Americas but was brought in as a cash crop by the Europeans who had obtained it from Asia.
However, there is no doubt that the addictive qualities of choclate were prevalent in Mesoamerica.