Puerto Escondido

Information

Puerto Escondido is a village site located in northern Honduras on a small tributary of the Chamelecon River (Joyce and Henderson 2007:642). Joyce and Henderson (2007:643) excavated this site over four field seasons and found evidence of human occupation from cultural materials and remains of human constructions. The authors recovered fragments of vessels and preformed a chemical analysis of 13 fragments of pottery to test for evidence of cacao (Joyce and Henderson 2007:643). "Eleven tested positive for traces diagnostic chemicals, theobromine and caffeine, in analyses by three different labs using a mixture of extraction and detection methods" (Joyce and Henderson 2007:643).

Mapping coordinates approximate.

ID Other ID Type Subtype Uncal BP (years) ± 1 σ (years) Median cal BP (years) Lower cal BP (years) Upper cal BP (years) δ13C Contaminated?
100 Sample 4DL-107 ChemicalSample Theobromine
101 Sample 4DC-104 ChemicalSample Theobromine
103 Sample 4DC-118 ChemicalSample Theobromine
104 Sample 4DC-118 ChemicalSample Theobromine
105 Sample 4DC-23 ChemicalSample Theobromine
102 Sample 4DC-116 ChemicalSample Theobromine
107 Sample 4DC-130 ChemicalSample Theobromine
108 Sample 4DC-130 ChemicalSample Theobromine
99 Sample 8K-31 ChemicalSample Theobromine 2290 40 2309 2356 2157 No
109 Sample 4DK-136 ChemicalSample Theobromine
106 Sample 4DM-17 ChemicalSample Theobromine

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References Cited

Henderson, Jon S., Rosemary A. Joyce, Grant D. Hall, W. Jeffrey Hurst and Patrick E. McGovern
     2007    Chemical and Archaeological Evidence for the Earliest Cacao Beverages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 104(8):18937-18940.

Joyce, Rosemary A. and Jon S. Henderson
     2007    From Feasting to Cuisine: Implications of Archaeological Research in an Early Honduras Village. American Anthropologist 109(4):642-653.

Joyce, Rosemary A. and Jon S. Henderson
     2010    Forming Mesoamerican Taste: Cacao Consumption in Formative Period Contexts. In Pre-Columbian Foodways: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food, Culture, and Markets in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by J. E. Staller and M. D. Carrasco, pp. 157-173. Springer, New York.