Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:56:51.006Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

INTRODUCTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2008

William R. Fowler
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this issue we introduce a new, occasional feature in Ancient Mesoamerica: longer, sustained, detailed papers that elaborate the finer points of controversial culture-historical issues or theoretical debates in Mesoamerican studies. Each of these longer pieces will be followed in a future issue by invited commentaries. This first paper involves a debate that has been brewing for some time: the origins of the words for cacao (Theobroma cacao and congeners [McNeil 2006b:341]) and chocolate and the culture-historical implications. Few things of ancient Mesoamerica have whetted both the intellectual and the culinary appetite like cacao and and its derivative, chocolate. Cacao and chocolate, in fact, have represented many things in Mesoamerica and all over the world: food, beverage, commodity, money—and words that evoke lively scholarly debate.

Type
Writing the History of the Word for Cacao in Ancient Mesoamerica
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , Fall 2007 , pp. 191 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Campbell, Lyle 1985 The Pipil Language of El Salvador. Mouton, Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Lyle, and Kaufman, Terrence 1976 A Linguistic Look at the Olmecs. American Antiquity 41:80–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coe, Sophie D., and Coe, Michael D. 1996 The True History of Chocolate. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Dakin, Karen, and Wichmann, Søren 2000 Cacao and Chocolate: A Uto-Aztecan Perspective. Ancient Mesoamerica 11:55–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Justeson, John S., Norman, William M., Campbell, Lyle, and Terrence, Kaufman 1985 The Foreign Impact on Lowland Mayan Language and Script. Middle American Research Institute Publication 53. Tulane University, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Henderson, John S., and Joyce, Rosemary 2006 Brewing Distinction: The Development of Cacao Beverages in Formative Mesoamerica. In Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao, edited by McNeil, Cameron L., pp. 140–153. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
McNeil, Cameron L. 2006a Introduction: The Biology, Antiquity, and Modern Uses of the Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao L.). In Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao, edited by McNeil, Cameron L., pp. 1–28. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
McNeil, Cameron L. 2006b Traditional Cacao Use in Modern Mesoamerica. In Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao, edited by McNeil, Cameron L., pp. 341–366. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Pool, Christopher A. 2007 Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powis, Terry G., Valdez, Fred Jr., Hester, Thomas R., Jeffrey Hurst, W., and Tarka, Stanley M. Jr. 2002 Spouted Vessels and Cacao Use among the Preclassic Maya. Latin American Antiquity 13:85–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, Lee A., and Price, Barbara J. 1971 Mesoamerican Trade and Its Role in the Emergence of Civilization. In Observations on the Emergence of Civilization in Mesoamerica, edited by Heizer, Robert F. and Graham, John A., pp. 169–195. Contributions of the University of California Archaeological Research Facility No. 11. University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Young, Allen 1994 The Chocolate Tree: A Natural History of Cacao. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar