Ancient DNA evidence suggests that cacao (Theobroma cacao) may have reached Etowah, a major Mississippian settlement in present-day Georgia, centuries before European contact.
An artist’s vision of Etowah, a Mississippian cultural heritage site located on the banks of the Etowah River in Bartow County, Georgia. Image credit: Herb Roe / Sci.News.
“Archaeologists, historians, and epigraphic researchers have known for decades that Central America had a long history of cacao consumption before European contact,” said Adam King, an archaeologist at the University of South Carolina, and his colleagues.
“More recently, research has shown that cacao consumption began in South America at least 5,000 years ago.”
“However, clear evidence that Indigenous peoples north of present-day Mexico consumed cacao before European arrival has been much more difficult to identify.”
“Because cacao evolved and adapted to tropical climates, its presence at pre-Columbian sites in what is now the United States would indicate contact with people living in or near cacao-producing regions of Central or South America,” the researchers added.
Previous studies identified chemical residues associated with cacao in ancient pottery from Pueblo Bonito, an ancestral Puebloan site in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. These findings suggest that residents consumed cacao-based beverages.
The evidence was based largely on the detection of theobromine, a chemical compound commonly associated with cacao. However, the same compound can also occur in other plants, making chemical analysis alone difficult to interpret.
The Pueblo Bonito findings were supported by additional archaeological evidence indicating long-distance connections between Chaco Canyon communities and peoples in tropical regions of what is now Mexico.
Cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) bearing fruit pods at various stages of ripening. Image credit: Marco Vazquez.
In a new study, researchers analyzed pottery fragments recovered from Etowah, a major Mississippian-era city near present-day Cartersville, Georgia.
The team detected fragmented ancient DNA belonging to Theobroma cacao in residue associated with the ceramic vessels.
The DNA dates to the 11th and 12th centuries A.D., more than a century before Etowah reached its peak as one of the most important political and cultural centers in the southeastern United States.
The discovery builds on earlier chemical residue analyses that detected cocoa-related compounds in pottery from the site. Those results were difficult to interpret because similar chemical markers are also found in yaupon holly, a caffeine-containing plant native to the southeastern United States. Yaupon holly was used to prepare a ceremonial beverage known as black drink.
By sequencing genetic material rather than relying solely on chemical signatures, the researchers were able to determine that the residue specifically matched cacao and not a locally available plant such as yaupon holly.
The pottery was recovered from a large pit used as fill for Etowah’s oldest earthen mound. The archaeological context is associated with communal feasting, suggesting that cacao beverages may have been part of gatherings and ceremonial practices during the city’s formative years.
The finding adds to a small but growing body of evidence that long-distance trade networks carried cacao into what is now the United States centuries before European colonization.
It also provides new insight into the connections linking Mississippian communities with Indigenous peoples and cacao-producing regions farther south.
“This discovery at Etowah challenges us to expand our understanding of the networks that distributed cacao across the Americas before European colonization,” the authors concluded.
The findings were published in the journal PLoS ONE.
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A. King and others. 2026. Cocoa of the Mississippian World: Evidence from Archaeogenomics. Theobroma cacao Consumption at the Etowah Site, Georgia. PLoS ONE 21 (8): e0353607. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0353607
Source: www.sci.news