Pre-Columbian Cahokia Mound Builders Consumed "Black Drink", Say Researchers

Evidence points to use of drink for ritual purposes, according to study analysis.

Like other pre-Columbian Native Americans in the southeastern U.S., people living 700 to 900 years ago in Cahokia, a large settlement distinquished by its massive earthenwork mounds in south-western Illinoise, consumed a "black drink", a caffeinated drink made from the leaves of a holly tree that grew hundreds of miles away from the Cahokia site, according to a recent study. Consumption of the brew, according to the researchers, had a ritualistic or religious significance.
The discovery was made as the research team, consisting of scientists at the University of Illinois, the University of New Mexico, Millsaps College in Mississippi and Hershey Technical Center in Pennsylvania, were sampling plant residue found within distinct and relatively rare ancient cylindrical Cahokian beakers. They found key biochemical markers, which included theobromine, caffeine and ursolic acid, proportioned much like that found within drinking vessels at other sites in the southeastern U.S. The beakers, dating from A.D. 1050 to 1250, were found at ritual sites in and around Cahokia.
Anthropologist Patricia Crowan of the University of New Mexico and chemist Jeffrey Hunt of the Hershey Technical Center conducted the chemical analyses. The study was in part an outgrowth of a similar project where they performed tests on ceramic vessels found at the Chaco Canyon archaeological site in New Mexico. In A.D. 1100-1125, the inhabitants of Chaco consumed liquid chocolate from special ceramic vessels found there, as the ancient Maya did in Mexico and Central America centuries before.
"This finding brings to us a whole wide spectrum of religious and symbolic behavior at Cahokia that we could only speculate about in the past," said Thomas Emerson, the director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey and a collaborator on the study.
Moreover, the findings add to the evidence for a widespread trade network between Cahokia and other settlements throughout the North American continent, particularly with those of the southeast. Says Emerson: "I would argue that it was the first pan-Indian city in North America, because there are both widespread contacts and emigrants. The evidence from artifacts indicates that people from a broad region (what is now the Midwest and southeast U.S.) were in contact with Cahokia. This is a level of population density, a level of political organization that has not been seen before in North America."
Although the "black drink" appears to represent trade, the Cahokia beakers themselves are considered to be locally made. As cylindrical pots with a handle on one side and a tiny lip on the other, many of them are carved with symbols representing water and the underworld, similar to the whelk shells used in black drink ceremonies recorded by early European explorers in the southeast, where the source of the drink, the Yaupon holly, grows. The Yaupon holly contains very high levels of caffeine, possibly as much as six times that of strong coffee. Rapidly drinking large quantities of it, as described in the early accounts, caused vomiting, an intentional part of a purification ritual practiced before battle or other important events.
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Residents of Cahokia, a massive pre-Columbian settlement near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, consumed "Black Drink" from special pottery vessels like this one. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer

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Concurrent with the black drink, a series of figurines representing agricultural fertility, the underworld and life-renewal were produced from local pipestone. Most of these figurines were discovered associated with temple sites.
"We postulate that this new pattern of agricultural religious symbolism is tied to the rise of Cahokia – and now we have black drink to wash it down with," Emerson said.
Greater Cahokia, a city with as many as 50,000 residents in its heyday during the 12th and 13th centuries A.D., was the largest prehistoric North American settlement north of Mexico. But its sudden emergence and decline within a 200-year period has remained a mystery among scholars. Despite its short-lived existence, however, its influence on art, religion and architecture is seen at settlements as far away as present-day Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Wisconsin.
The new findings are currently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as "Ritual Black Drink Consumption at Cahokia".
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The pre-Columbian settlement at Cahokia was the largest city in North America north of Mexico, with as many as 50,000 people living there at its peak. Credit: Painting by Lloyd K. Townsend. Image courtesy of the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Illinois

http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/june-2012/article/pre-columbian-cahokia-mound-builders-consumed-black-drink-say-researchers