Technique Development for Caffeinated Beverage Identification

University Of South Carolina At Columbia, Columbia SC

Investigators

Abstract

The great power archaeology has is the ability to teach about our collective past and provide a perspective on people today. A key part of that collective past, as well as the present, is beliefs and associated belief practices. Because the material remains of beliefs are often transitory and open to interpretation, this realm of human behavior is often under-studied by those who explore the deep past. This project intends to refine the methods used to identify the use of, and ultimately explore the ancient ritual practices surrounding, caffeinated beverages in the Americas. Before the coming of Europeans to the New World, caffeinated beverages were made either using a species of holly (yaupon or dahoon holly) in North America, or chocolate in Central America. Historical and archaeological information show that beverages made from these plants were consumed in ritual and specialized contexts, so understanding how and when they were used will make it possible to explore the ritual practices surrounding those uses. This will be done while helping to train the next generation of archaeologists and supporting indigenous businesses in Belize and the US. The search for the remains of foods and other concoctions in ancient containers is most often done by attempting to detect the presence of diagnostic compounds that had been absorbed into the matrix of the container. Most absorbed residue studies employ some version of mass spectrometry to detect and measure the concentration of various compounds present in residue samples collected from ancient containers. The problem with absorbed residue studies of caffeinated beverages in the Americas is that the compounds and concentrations thought to distinguish chocolate from yaupon holly do not, in fact, differentiate residues produced by the two plants. This project will search for chemical compounds that definitively distinguish the two plants sources and the beverages made from them. This will be done by analyzing samples derived from the plant sources, the beverages made using traditional methods, and fragments of low-fired ceramic vessels spiked with those beverages.