Chocolate Timeline

5000 BC. The beginnings of agriculture on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and the Altiplano Central. Varieties of cacao are thought to have begun their migration across Central and South America.

3000-500 BC. The Olmec civilisation emerges, probably the first to cultivate the cacao bean, which hitherto had grown wild across South America. Olmecs are at their most prodigious in about 1500 BC. The age of ceremonial centres: Cuicuilco and La Venta.

0. Cacao is cultivated by the Maya, from Guatemala, in the lowlands south of Yucatán and El Petan and the first stages of the cultivation of cocoa in that region begins. The emergence and development of centres of civilisation in Itzapa, Teotihuacán and Monte Alban.