Chocolate in Mesoamerica

A Cultural History of Cacao

Edited by Cameron L. McNeil

Foreword by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase

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Copyright 2006 by Cameron L. McNeil
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Title page image: Theobroma cacao. Cut fruit showing five seeds, flower, sectioned flower,
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 7

Brewing Distinction
The Development of Cacao Beverages in Formative Mesoamerica

John S. Henderson and Rosemary A. Joyce

The fact that no pre-Columbian inhabitant of South America used T.

cacao for anything beyond manufacturing a wine from the white pulp
surrounding the seeds, and using the same pulp as a nibble, would seem
a convincing argument against a South American origin and subsequent
transportation to Mesoamerica (S. D. Coe and M. D. Coe 1996:26).

In making this statement in their authoritative social history of cacao, Sophie

and Michael Coe made an assumption shared by generations of scholars in-
terested in the economic and ritual significance of cacao in pre-Hispanic Me-
soamerica, ourselves included. This assumption was that cacao was originally
cultivated for the purpose of producing the kind of drink described in the
sixteenth century, made by fermenting the cacao seeds, drying them, optionally
toasting them, grinding them, and mixing them with water in a thick, bitter
suspension. But what if this use of Theobroma did not provide the original
impetus for the cultivation and domestication of Theobroma cacao L.? What if,
instead, the original cultivators—whether in Central or South America—used
the wild relatives of T. cacao in ways analogous to those ethnographically docu-
mented for other members of the genus—for the pulp, eaten fresh or fermented
to form a beverage, cacao chicha, or chocolate beer?
Our suggestion that this possibility be considered is based on a number of
lines of argument, which will be sketched out briefly below. Fundamentally,
however, it rests on a concern to avoid arguing teleologically. The complexity
of the steps involved in producing the familiar chocolate beverage, if taken as
the goal of the cultivation of T. cacao, invokes a posteriori logic. The original
cultivators of the plant should have seen advantages to it that did not require
 The Development of Cacao Beverages in Formative Mesoamerica 141

the wholesale invention of a sequence of processing. Instead, this production

process should be open to modeling as an outcome of likely actions of early
plant cultivators, elaborated over time into the form we take as normative to-
day. When we hold ourselves to this requirement, the fact that stands out in
the production process of chocolate (the term we will use for the beverage
highlighting ground cacao seeds, familiar to all Mesoamericanists, and taken
as the norm by S. D. Coe and M. D. Coe [1996]) is that it begins with fer-
mentation and produces precisely the product rejected as evidence for connec-
tions between South and Central American practices related to Theobroma:
a fermented, alcoholic beverage (which we will call cacao chicha). Accepting
that cacao may originally have been one among a wider range of plants used to
produce fermented beverages, we then propose a rationale—admittedly specu-
lative, but consistent with later Mesoamerican practices—for the conversion of
interest in cacao beverages from their intoxicating properties to the potential
they provided for the performance of serving.
Several authors (Blake and Clark 1999; Clark and Blake 1994; Clark and
Gosser 1995; Hill and Clark 2001; Hoopes 1995) have suggested that presenta-
tion of drinks, particularly fermented beverages, in elaborately decorated con-
tainers was an important strategy employed by “aggrandizers” in early Central
American societies. These authors all propose that drinking was one of the
activities that could legitimately be sponsored in non-hierarchical societies to
create forms of social debt, binding people in asymmetric social relations. We
have previously proposed that in the recently documented early villages of Ca-
ribbean coastal Honduras, similar social events might have involved early use
of cacao (Henderson and Joyce 2001), a product critical in the later history of
the region and still cultivated today.
The Ulua River Valley of Honduras (Figure 7.1) was among the major docu-
mented zones of cacao cultivation in the sixteenth century (Bergmann 1969).
When the Spaniards invaded the region, the ruler of Chetumal, some 200 miles
distant up the coast of Yucatan, so valued his interests in Ulua cacao plantations
that he sent a fleet of war canoes commanded by Gonzalo Guerrero to defend
the valley against the newcomers (Henderson 1979). To date, archaeological
evidence for earlier cultivation of cacao in the region has been indirect, con-
sisting of modeled cacao pods that formed ornaments on Classic period cache
vessels and figurines made and recovered in the valley (Figure 7.2; compare D.
Stone 1984). Production of cacao beverages involving frothing of cacao suspen-
sion may date to the early Middle Formative, when spouted bottles with flar-
ing necks were produced, including those Terry Powis identified as containing
cacao in Belize (Powis et al. 2002).1 The dates of such vessels in the Ulua Valley
Figure 7.1. Map showing location of lower Ulua River Valley, Honduras. Map by
John S. Henderson.

Figure 7.2. Ceramic figurine of a

monkey holding a cacao pod. Classic
period. Ulua Valley, Honduras.
Photograph courtesy of Peabody
Museum, Harvard University
(Photo 45–13–20/15068 N17851).
 The Development of Cacao Beverages in Formative Mesoamerica 143

(ca. 1000–700 B.C.) appear to be the earliest reported (Powis et al. 2002:88),
suggesting that the Ulua Valley may have been an early locale for production
of standard Mesoamerican chocolate.

The Many Forms of Drinking Cacao

Theobroma pentagona, T.leiocarpa, and T. grandiflorum, wild relatives of cacao,

are prized in northern South America for the sweet pulp that surrounds the
seeds (A. M. Young 1994:3; see Bletter and Daly, this volume). South American
use of the pods included the production of a drink from the fermented pulp
(A. M. Young 1994:14–15). These indigenous South American practices suggest
a potential route toward the elaborate processing of cacao seeds required for
their consumption in the Mesoamerican fashion as chocolate, since the first
step in that process is fermenting the contents of cacao pods. This indigenous
tradition of production of cacao chicha also provides a precedent, otherwise
lacking in the ethnographic accounts of use of the genus, for consuming cacao
as a beverage.
The South American pattern of using members of the genus for their pulp is
commonly practiced as far north as Nicaragua, where T. bicolor has long been
used to make pinolillo, while people southward used the fresh pulp to make “a
refreshing, frothy beverage with a citrus-like flavor” (A. M. Young 1994:15). A
close relative of the Theobroma genus, Herrania purpurea (formerly Theobroma
purpurea), was used by the Bri Bri of Costa Rica to produce a more bitter drink
(P. H. Allen 1956:112, 221–222). In South America, the Andaki allowed the pulp
of Theobroma to ferment, producing an alcoholic drink (Friede 1953). Bletter
and Daly (this volume) document use of Theobroma spp. in fermented drinks
in Panama, Venezuela, and French Guiana.
There are good grounds for thinking that even during the period when
cacao was consumed as nonalcoholic chocolate in Mesoamerica, an intoxicat-
ing cacao beverage was also produced there, as it still is today. Recent research
by Cameron McNeil (Chapter 17, this volume) confirms that contemporary
Highland Maya people occasionally make fermented beverages from cacao
pulp. Inscriptions on Classic Maya polychrome vases include references to k’ab
kakaw, literally honey-cacao, described as “a possibly fermented cacao juice
using honey” (Reents-Budet 1994c:75). The cacao foods recorded on Classic
Maya polychrome pots include records of “tree-fresh” cacao, thought to be a
reference to the pulp (B. MacLeod and D. Reents-Budet 1994:115–119), which
is the material central to the production of fermented cacao drinks.
 144 John S. Henderson and Rosemary A. Joyce

But the strongest evidence for use of fermented cacao beverages comes from
the Late Postclassic Mexica (Aztecs), as recorded in the work of Bernardino de
Sahagún (1950–82). The Nahuatl-speaking informants, describing the food
consumed by the lords of Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capital, enumerated a wide
range of cacao beverages, including some that recall the “tree fresh” cacao of the
Classic Maya and the honey-cacao identified as possibly a fermented drink:
Then, in his house, the ruler was served his chocolate, with which he
finished [his repast]—green, made up of tender cacao; honeyed chocolate
made with ground up dried flowers—with green vanilla pods; bright red
chocolate; orange-colored chocolate; black chocolate; white chocolate.
(Sahagún 1950–82, Book 8, Chapter 13, 1954:39).
A fermented beverage produced from members of the genus Theobroma ap-
parently exhibits a distinctive taste when contrasted with other fermented bev-
erages. The adjective that comes up repeatedly in descriptions of cacao pulp
beverages is “refreshing,” a term also applied to the unfermented pulp itself.
The “tree-fresh cacao” of the Classic Maya is intriguingly echoed in the botani-
cal description provided to Sahagún of a form of cacao that is clearly described
as an intoxicating beverage:
[Green cacao] makes one drunk, takes effect on one, makes one dizzy,
confuses one, makes one sick, deranges one. When an ordinary amount is
drunk, it gladdens one, refreshes one, consoles one, invigorates one. Thus
it is said: ‘I take cacao. I wet my lips. I refresh myself.’ (Sahagún 1950–82,
Book 11, Chapter 6, 1963:119–120)
The description is clearly of a fermented beverage and suggests that the “green
cacao” described as one of the beverages served to the ruler may also have been
intoxicating. The word translated as “green” here is xoxouhqui, which means
green in color but also means unripe and potentially sour (in reference to fruit
trees, the main subject of this section of the text; Susan Gillespie, personal
communication 2002). The Spanish gloss on the Nahuatl text attributes the
intoxicating character of “green cacao” to being “new,” writing “Cuando es
nuevo, si se bebe mucho emborracha, y si se bebe templadamente refrigera y
refresca” [“When it is new, if one drinks much one becomes drunk, and if one
drinks temperately it cools and refreshes”]. The Spanish text directly substitutes
“nuevo,” “new,” for the Nahuatl text’s “green/immature/sour.”
The only way a person would become intoxicated on new cacao would be by
drinking the liquid of fermentation, which is otherwise a waste product of the
production of seeds to be dried for later preparation as standard Mesoamerican
chocolate. The product of fermentation is a clear liquid (unlike the dense sus-
 The Development of Cacao Beverages in Formative Mesoamerica 145

pension of ground cacao) that is lighter in color than chocolate. References to

“fresh” cacao could mark the distinction between the primary fermented bever-
age and the secondary, unfermented chocolate. The fermented beverage would
have to be consumed new, or fresh, as soon as it was produced, since it would
continue to ferment and get sour. Rather than a characterization of drinking
immoderately or in moderation, the passage from Sahagún’s Florentine Codex
may better be read as distinguishing two forms of cacao beverage, requiring
different drinking approaches.
This passage surely demonstrates that among the forms of cacao consump-
tion in the sixteenth century, there was at least one means of drinking cacao as
a fermented, intoxicating beverage. It is impossible to produce the conventional
form of chocolate without producing a fermented cacao drink as one stage in
the process.

Brewing Cacao Chicha

The quality highlighted in the Nahuatl text, and perhaps also in Classic Maya
texts, is freshness versus sourness, a register of taste relevant for fermented
drinks in a way it is not relevant to what we know today as chocolate. As A.
M. Young (1994:74–79) describes the conventional production process, seeds
and pulp are placed in a vessel (often a wooden box or even a canoe; personal
observation, Henderson and Joyce) and left to ferment for several days. The
conversion of the pulp to alcohol accompanies changes in polyphenols in the
seeds, cutting the bitterness of the seeds and turning them a lovely pale violet.
Significantly, A. M. Young (1994:74) notes that the Mesoamerican-selected
“criollo-derived cacao seeds require less time to ferment than forastero seeds,”
the South American cultivar. This implies that the conversion of seeds to a form
acceptable for Mesoamerican use could take place early in the fermentation
process. This is important because after the available sugars in the seeds and
pulp are converted into alcohol, a second stage of fermentation starts, which
converts alcohol to acetic acid. In order to recoup drinkable cacao chicha, fer-
mentation could not be allowed to continue too long, or the product would be
effectively undrinkable, cacao vinegar.
The final development of the chocolate flavor of the seeds is accompanied
by a change in color from purple to brown and shrinkage of the fermented
seeds. The fermented seeds must be completely dried (Figure 7.3) to prevent
the growth of mold, still a problem in contemporary chocolate production
(Robert Steinberg, personal communication 2001). The degree of fermentation
accomplished before the beans are dried can be quite varied.
The sequence of processes that result in the fermented seeds that fuel the
 146 John S. Henderson and Rosemary A. Joyce

Figure 7.3. Cacao seeds drying in the northern Ulua Valley, Honduras, in 1982. Photograph
courtesy of Kevin O. Pope.

modern chocolate industry cannot have been developed solely for the purpose
of inducing the changes that make cacao seeds suitable for chocolate produc-
tion. But they could easily have developed from an initial desire to produce a
lightly fermented beverage from cacao pulp. We suggest that it is possible that
in Mesoamerica the original use of cacao was as a form of chicha. Bitter choco-
late is an acquired taste, with relatively subtle stimulant effects and none of the
attraction of intoxicants that Hoopes (1995) persuasively argues contributed to
the effectiveness of feasts in early Central American societies.
From this perspective, cacao seeds were a by-product, and their conversion
to a tasty food was an unanticipated side effect of the primary fermentation
of cacao pulp, perhaps more effective because of the characteristics of criollo
cacao. A. M. Young (1994:11) suggests, based on ethnographic observations
in Central America, that the seeds of plants in the genus might have been
important sources of dietary fat. Bletter and Daly (this volume) document
examples of cultivation of T. bicolor and relatives for seeds, eaten toasted, in a
number of Colombian and Ecuadorian societies. We suggest that cacao seeds,
a by-product of alcohol production, would have been appreciated in early Me-
soamerica just as palm seeds were, for their rich fat. Ground seeds could have
been added to cacao as a condiment at the time of service. The use of ground
sapote seeds (most likely Pouteria sapota) as a condiment in cacao beverages has
been described ethnographically among the Lacandon, making it clear that
 The Development of Cacao Beverages in Formative Mesoamerica 147

adding ground seeds to cacao is as much a part of the process as the more widely
studied step of adding flowers (S. D. Coe and M. D. Coe 1996:61–66; com-
pare Gillespie and MacVean 2002; Reents-Budet 1994c:75–79). Because of the
glue-like texture of the pulp, it would have been impossible to separate cacao
seeds from the pulp in advance of fermentation. Strained out of the fermented
liquid, they need only have been tested for taste by food processors already ac-
customed to drying, toasting, and grinding seeds—practices that probably can
be traced to the Mesoamerican Archaic period (ca. 8000–2000 B.C.).

Serving Cacao as Social Performance

Although most of the equipment used in processing cacao in traditional Meso-
american style is perishable, pottery vessels do provide a possibility for tracing
patterns of food serving specific to the cacao complex (see Hurst, this volume).
Transport of cacao beans presumably involved soft, perishable containers. Pro-
cessing of cacao pods involved equally perishable wooden troughs. It is only
at the stage of preparation and consumption that specialized paraphernalia in
imperishable materials, specifically grinding stones and serving vessels, were
employed.
As described in the sixteenth century, the presentation of cacao required the
use of specialized vessels for preparation and serving. Sahagún recorded the
following description of the vessels used to serve cacao to the rulers of Tenoch-
titlan:
The chocolate was served in a painted gourd vessel, with a stopper also
painted with a design, and [having] a beater; or in a painted gourd, smoky
[in color], from neighboring lands, with a gourd stopper, and a jar rest
of ocelot skin or of cured leather. In a small net were kept the earthen
jars, the strainer with which was purified the chocolate, a large, earthen
jar for making the chocolate, a large painted gourd vessel in which the
hands were washed, richly designed drinking vessels; [there were] large
food baskets, sauce dishes, polished dishes, and wooden dishes (Sahagún
1950–82, Book 8, 1954:40).
Postclassic period (A.D. 1000–1521) vessels illustrated in the Central Mexican
Codex Nuttall (1975) (Figure 7.4) would have facilitated frothing of the ca-
cao, a crucial step required to force the chocolate sediment into suspension,
enclosing the liquid within a restricted body with a flaring neck that contained
the developing foam. The fundamental requirement for drinking chocolate as
normally described in late periods in Mesoamerica appears to have been some
form of drinking cup and some way to raise a froth on the cacao suspension
(Figure 7.5).
Figure 7.4. A woman seated on a jaguar-skin throne in front of a palace (right) passes a vessel
containing frothed cacao to the Mixtec Lord 8 Deer Jaguar Claw, also seated on a jaguar-skin
throne (left). Note the constricted neck of the vessel. Codex Nuttall 1975 [1902]:26.

Figure 7.5. Early Colonial drawing of a Mexica woman frothing cacao by pouring
it from a vase into cups. Illustration from the Florentine Codex (Sagahún 1950–82,
Book 10, 1963:ill. 144a).
 The Development of Cacao Beverages in Formative Mesoamerica 149

Bottles that are part of the earliest ceramic complexes of the lower Ulua
Valley region have tall narrow necks (Figure 7.6) and seem ill-suited to this
specific process of Mesoamerican cacao consumption (Healy 1974; Joyce and
Henderson 2001). Vessel forms similar to those in the Codex Nuttall are not
found until the advent of Middle Formative ceramic complexes, including that
associated with the Ulua Valley archaeological site Playa de los Muertos (Ken-
nedy 1981; D. Popenoe 1934). In these complexes, for which we have obtained
consistent radiocarbon dates ca. 900–700 B.C. (Hendon and Joyce 1993; Joyce
1992; Joyce and Henderson 2001), new bottle forms develop. These feature
both a narrow spout and a flaring neck (Figure 7.7). They would have allowed
frothing of cacao by pouring from one vessel to another. We note with interest
the report by Powis, Valdez, Hester, Hurst, and Tarka (2002) of the identifica-
tion of chemical signatures of Theobroma in similar vessels dating to ca. 600
B.C. in Belize.
The suite of decorated vessel forms shared by complexes in the earlier For-
mative Ulua Valley (Joyce and Henderson 2001) and Soconusco (Blake and

Figure 7.6. Early Formative bottle.

Barraca Brown Burnished type, Cusuco
ceramic complex, Ocotillo phase, 1100–
900 B.C. Honduras. Collection of the
Instituto Hondureño de Antropología
e Historia, Museo de San Pedro Sula,
Honduras. Drawing by Yolanda Tovar.
 150 John S. Henderson and Rosemary A. Joyce

Figure 7.7. Middle Formative bottle. Bodega Burnished type, Playa phase. Honduras. Col-
lection of the Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia, Museo de San Pedro Sula,
Honduras. Photograph by John S. Henderson.

Clark 1999; Clark and Gosser 1995), both areas of probable production of
cacao, includes forms appropriate for other required steps of cacao preparation,
not including the last step of frothing. The small red-rimmed tecomates from
Puerto Escondido would have been suitable for short-term storage of a small
quantity of highly valuable consumables such as cacao beans and for transport
of quantities of cacao beans sufficient for individual servings to a grinding plat-
form. Ground cacao could have been mixed with water and other additives in
pattern-burnished necked jars, whose size and formal characteristics are similar
to jars shown in scenes involving presentation of cacao in Late Postclassic Cen-
tral Mexican codices (see Figure 7.4). Cacao drinking would have required cups
or small bowls (see, for example, Codex Nuttall 1975:30, lower right), like the
pattern-burnished bowls that form the final component of the suite of vessels
at Puerto Escondido.
We have proposed that drinking rituals that were the likely arena for the use
of new, highly decorated pottery forms in early Mesoamerica would have been
part of ceremonies entailed by social relationships contracted through mar-
riage and fostering of children (Henderson and Joyce 2001; Joyce 1996b). The
symbolic dimensions of cacao would have made it particularly appropriate to
 The Development of Cacao Beverages in Formative Mesoamerica 151

these ceremonies. In later Mesoamerican societies for which we have data on

social alliances, cacao was a primary object of exchanges between social groups,
marking betrothal, marriage, and children’s life cycle rituals (S. D. Coe and
M. D. Coe 1996:61–65; Gillespie and Joyce 1997; Marcus 1992). In the Codex
Nuttall (1975), scenes showing vessels containing a brown foamy beverage are
found in contexts of marriage, betrothal, children’s life-cycle rituals, funerary,
and ancestor veneration ceremonies.
A similar range of social ceremonies has been documented for Formative
period Mesoamerican societies. Figurines have been taken as evidence for age-
graded rites of passage in a number of Formative period societies, including
the Playa de los Muertos society of Middle Formative Honduras (Joyce 2001:
Chapter 2; compare Cyphers 1993; Lesure 1997). Although material traces of
marriage or betrothal ceremonies themselves have not been identified, Cyphers
(1984) has noted the likely representation in sculpture of a marital alliance be-
tween Chalcatzingo, Mexico, and another locality. Burials, including secondary
mortuary treatment, can be seen as the material residues of funerary rites in
Formative period villages, including sites in Honduras (Joyce 1999).
In the context of such social ceremonies, hosts could create social debts by
matching preparation of feasts to the presence of particular visitors. But for
fermented beverages, the work of production would have been under way in
advance of such ceremonial visits, so serving fermented drinks would not as ef-
fectively be credited to relations with particular visitors as would preparing feast
foods to order for the visit. One way for hosts to create specific debt and honor
specific visitors would be to transform the serving of drinks into a performance
aimed at particular visitors. In the case of cacao, it is clear that it was com-
mon practice in later Mesoamerican societies to add condiments at the time
of serving. The addition of ground cacao seeds to an alcoholic cacao beverage,
of which they were a by-product, would have lent itself to such a performative
distinction at the time of serving.
The processing of cacao seeds—grinding into a fine nut meal—could have
taken place as a performance of preparing a feast food for specially honored
guests, creating a higher level of distinction and consequently greater social
debt. The performance dimension of serving chocolate, as described in later
Mesoamerican sources, is remarkable. Adding ground cacao seeds to liquid and
frothing it to make a suspension was, by necessity, a last-minute action, the one
depicted in the famous Classic Maya polychrome vase showing cacao being
poured out of a cylinder in a palace setting (see Reents-Budet, Figure 10.10, this
volume). Ethnographic accounts of the formal grinding of cacao by Lacandon
women, co-sponsors of ceremonies, involving the use of archaic stone tools,
precisely capture the sense of grinding as performance that we suggest may
 152 John S. Henderson and Rosemary A. Joyce

have been relevant in the early history of cacao (S. D. Coe and M. D. Coe
1996:65, citing Baer and Merrifield 1971:209–210). In this case, the ground
cacao seeds are sometimes mixed into a fermented beverage—balché—echoing
what we suggest may have been the original point of serving cacao in its early
Mesoamerican history.

Implications for the Study of Ancient Cacao

The performance of cacao preparation was a means of formalizing hosting and
marking the occasion of drinking as special. Ethnographic accounts of South
American chicha drinking ceremonies (for example, Whitten 1986), in which
the pots themselves—made to order and subsequently smashed—enhance the
event, are a model for introducing performative actions, not strictly necessary,
to increase the drama of the drinking event, making it more memorable and
distinguishing one event from another. We suggest that as serving of cacao
became increasingly formalized throughout the history of Mesoamerica, the
emphasis shifted from the alcoholic nature of the medium to the performative
preparation of a rare drink to mark a special event.
By developing a formal model for the use of cacao in early Mesoamerica that
emphasizes the social setting for preparation and consumption, and that takes
into account the actual vessel forms present in our excavations, we have been
led to make a series of interlinked proposals. We suggest that cacao was most
likely prepared originally as an alcoholic beverage, one among a suite of such
drinks. This suggestion makes sense of the elaborate preparation sequence, is
consistent with modern uses of wild relatives of cacao, and is supported by the
description in sixteenth-century Nahuatl sources of a form of cacao that was
intoxicating. The recovery of theobromine from necked bottles dating to the
earliest periods of occupation at Puerto Escondido, Honduras, is consistent
with the consumption of a cacao beverage that was not frothed.
Theobromine was also present in examples of typical spouted, wide-mouthed
bottles that were developed slightly later, like those described from Belize,
which would have facilitated frothing. Thus, between the Early and Middle
Formative periods there was a shift in how cacao beverages were prepared and
presented. We suggest that frothing cacao drinks and adding such condiments
as flowers and ground seeds (including ground cacao seeds), must be seen as
adding an element of performance to serving cacao that would have helped to
underline publicly the social debt assumed by those to whom these beverages
were served.
Like others interested in the social uses of cacao, we emphasize that over the
long span of time during which cacao was used—now pushed a further seven-
 The Development of Cacao Beverages in Formative Mesoamerica 153

hundred years earlier by our analyses—we should expect that historical change
in social organization, cuisine, and politics would have led to changes in the
ways cacao was prepared, presented, and consumed.

Note
1. The alternative term “Preclassic,” which is not used here, is specific to the ar-
chaeology of the Maya area, where it is defined as the development of Classic societies.
The term “Formative” is used here instead because the research context for Puerto Es-
condido is the wider literature on early complexity in Mesoamerica. In this literature,
concerning the Gulf Coast Olmec and related peoples, the time periods are referred
to as Early and Middle Formative, and beginning and ending dates are different from
those for the Preclassic period.