Scientists have found traces of alkaloids cocoa in North American ceramic vessels of the eighth century. Work published in Journal of Archaeological Science.
The researchers did washings with pottery found in the parking lot 13 in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Its age is about 1200 years parking refers to the 770 th year of our era. The resulting solutions were analyzed by liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry.
As a result, the authors were able to find traces of blood vessels in caffeine and theobromine alkaloids, characteristic of cocoa beans. According to scientists, the finding suggests that the population of North America had used the chocolate around 300 earlier than previously thought.
