Traders brought Central American cacao to Georgia 1,000 years ago

Archaeologists identified Theobroma cacao DNA and chemical residues on 11th-century potsherds from the Mississippian site of Etowah in northern Georgia, confirming that the feast participants consumed cacao imported from Central America. The findings demonstrate that Etowah’s inhabitants maintained trade networks spanning roughly 3,000 km, linking the eastern United States with tropical cacao-growing regions.