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INTRODUCTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2008

William R. Fowler
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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

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