ANCIENT MAYANS USED CHOCOLATE FOR MONEY

[Judi Lynn]

ANCIENT MAYANS USED CHOCOLATE FOR MONEY
BY ARISTOS GEORGIOU ON 6/29/18 AT 11:22 AM

The ancient Mayans used cacao beans—the principal ingredient in chocolate—as a currency, according to a study published in the journal Economic Anthropology.

The research suggests that during the Classic Maya period (250-900 CE) cacao was exchanged for goods and services. The Mayans never used coins but are thought to have bartered items such as tobacco, maize and clothing.

Author of the study, Joanne Baron from the Bard Early College Network in New Jersey, said that this period saw the “early monetization of cacao beans and cotton textiles.”

“I argue that these products, originally valued for their use in status display, took on monetary functions within a context of expanding marketplaces among rival Maya kingdoms,” she wrote in the study.

More:
http://www.newsweek.com/ancient-maya-used-chocolate-money-1001513?piano_t=1

Anthropology:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/12293939

[DetlefK]

1. Who needs the gold-standard? We should go back to the cocoa-standard!

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Cacao residue has been found in Ancestral Pueblo pottery

Cacao residue has been found in Ancestral Pueblo pottery in what is today the Four Corners area of the US Southwest (For the geographically-challenged, that’s hundreds of miles NORTH of today’s US—Mexican border). The cacao must have been brought north by traders and must have commanded a pretty steep price in whatever the Four Corners people’s must have had to trade in return.

Next time you grumble about the price of chocolate, think about what those guys must have paid!