Studying on Duolingo, I am trying to translate this sentence here:
Die ersten Kakaobohnen brachte Christoph Kolumbus aus Amerika mit, ohne dass man zu dieser Zeit etwas damit anfangen konnte.
I get the first part, but I am struggling with the bold part. How does ohne influence the sentence meaning? I thought ohne dass could be taken as a but, however "but at that time they could do something with that" doesn't make much sense when you read everything.