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Wwwcisyaleedu Art and Identity in Mexico From the Olmec to Modern Times

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Mesoamerican civilization

Olmecs
Olmec Heartland Overview 4.svg

The Olmec heartland, where the Olmec reigned from 1400 to 400 BCE
Geographical range Veracruz, Mexico
Period Preclassic Era
Dates c.  2,500 – 400 BCE
Type site San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán
Major sites La Venta, Tres Zapotes, Laguna de los Cerros
Preceded by Archaic Mesoamerica
Followed by Epi-Olmecs

The Wrestler; 1200-400 BCE; basalt; height: 66 cm, from the Arroyo Sonso area (Veracruz, Mexico); Museo Nacional de Antropología. Olmec artists are known for both monumental and miniature portrayals of what are causeless to be persons of authority-from 6-ton heads sculptures to figurines.

The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilisation. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. Information technology has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in part from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe–Zoque cultures.

The Olmecs flourished during Mesoamerica'due south formative period, dating roughly from every bit early equally 1500 BCE to about 400 BCE. Pre-Olmec cultures had flourished since about 2500 BCE, but by 1600–1500 BCE, early on Olmec culture had emerged, centered on the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán site near the coast in southeast Veracruz.[1] They were the get-go Mesoamerican civilization, and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed.[2] Among other "firsts", the Olmec appeared to exercise ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nigh all subsequent Mesoamerican societies. The aspect of the Olmecs most familiar now is their artwork, particularly the aptly named "colossal heads".[three] The Olmec civilization was first divers through artifacts which collectors purchased on the pre-Columbian art market place in the belatedly 19th century and early 20th centuries. Olmec artworks are considered among ancient America's most hitting.[4]

Etymology [edit]

The proper noun 'Olmec' comes from the Nahuatl give-and-take for the Olmecs: Ōlmēcatl [oːlˈmeːkat͡ɬ] (singular) or Ōlmēcah [oːlˈmeːkaʔ] (plural). This word is composed of the two words ōlli [ˈoːlːi], pregnant "natural rubber", and mēcatl [ˈmeːkat͡ɬ], significant "people", so the word means "rubber people".[v] [six] Rubber was an important part of the ancient Mesoamerican ballgame.

Overview [edit]

The Olmec heartland is the area in the Gulf lowlands where information technology expanded subsequently early development in Soconusco, Veracruz. This area is characterized by swampy lowlands punctuated by low hills, ridges, and volcanoes. The Sierra de los Tuxtlas rises sharply in the north, along the Gulf of Mexico's Bay of Campeche. Hither, the Olmec constructed permanent city-temple complexes at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, La Venta, Tres Zapotes, and Laguna de los Cerros. In this region, the first Mesoamerican civilisation emerged and reigned from c.  1400–400 BCE.[vii]

Origins [edit]

The ancestry of Olmec civilisation accept traditionally been placed between 1400 and 1200 BCE. Past finds of Olmec remains ritually deposited at the shrine El Manatí near the triple archaeological sites known collectively as San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán moved this dorsum to "at least" 1600–1500 BCE.[8] It seems that the Olmec had their roots in early farming cultures of Tabasco, which began between 5100 BCE and 4600 BCE. These shared the same basic food crops and technologies of the later Olmec civilisation.[nine]

What is today called Olmec showtime appeared fully within San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, where distinctive Olmec features occurred around 1400 BCE. The rising of civilization was assisted past the local ecology of well-watered alluvial soil, as well equally by the transportation network provided by the Coatzacoalcos river basin. This surround may exist compared to that of other ancient centers of culture: the Nile, Indus, and Yellowish River valleys and Mesopotamia. This highly productive environment encouraged a densely concentrated population, which in turn triggered the ascension of an elite class.[10] The aristocracy form created the demand for the production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmec culture.[eleven] Many of these luxury artifacts were made from materials such equally jade, obsidian, and magnetite, which came from afar locations and suggest that early Olmec elites had admission to an extensive trading network in Mesoamerica. The source of the near valued jade was the Motagua River valley in eastern Guatemala,[12] and Olmec obsidian has been traced to sources in the Guatemala highlands, such as El Chayal and San Martín Jilotepeque, or in Puebla,[13] distances ranging from 200 to 400 km (120–250 miles) abroad, respectively.[fourteen]

The state of Guerrero, and in particular its early Mezcala civilization, seem to have played an of import role in the early history of Olmec civilisation. Olmec-mode artifacts tend to appear before in some parts of Guerrero than in the Veracruz-Tabasco area. In detail, the relevant objects from the Amuco-Abelino site in Guerrero reveal dates as early every bit 1530 BCE.[15] The urban center of Teopantecuanitlan in Guerrero is also relevant in this regard.

La Venta [edit]

The starting time Olmec center, San Lorenzo, was all simply abandoned around 900 BCE at about the same fourth dimension that La Venta rose to prominence.[xvi] A wholesale destruction of many San Lorenzo monuments also occurred c. 950s BCE, which may indicate an internal uprising or, less likely, an invasion.[17] The latest thinking, nevertheless, is that environmental changes may have been responsible for this shift in Olmec centers, with certain important rivers changing course.[eighteen]

In any case, following the decline of San Lorenzo, La Venta became the about prominent Olmec center, lasting from 900 BCE until its abandonment around 400 BCE.[19] La Venta sustained the Olmec cultural traditions with spectacular displays of power and wealth. The Great Pyramid was the largest Mesoamerican structure of its time. Even today, subsequently 2500 years of erosion, it rises 34 m (112 ft) in a higher place the naturally flat landscape.[20] Cached deep within La Venta lay opulent, labor-intensive "offerings" – 1000 tons of smooth serpentine blocks, big mosaic pavements, and at least 48 split up votive offerings of polished jade celts, pottery, figurines, and hematite mirrors.[21]

Decline [edit]

Scholars accept yet to determine the crusade of the eventual extinction of the Olmec civilisation. Between 400 and 350 BCE, the population in the eastern half of the Olmec heartland dropped precipitously, and the area was sparsely inhabited until the 19th century.[22] According to archaeologists, this depopulation was probably the upshot of "very serious environmental changes that rendered the region unsuited for big groups of farmers", in detail changes to the riverine environs that the Olmec depended upon for agronomics, hunting and gathering, and transportation. These changes may have been triggered by tectonic upheavals or subsidence, or the siltation of rivers due to agricultural practices.[23]

One theory for the considerable population drop during the Terminal Formative period is suggested by Santley and colleagues (Santley et al. 1997), who propose the relocation of settlements due to volcanism, instead of extinction. Volcanic eruptions during the Early, Belatedly and Concluding Determinative periods would have blanketed the lands and forced the Olmec to move their settlements.[24]

Whatever the cause, within a few hundred years of the abandonment of the last Olmec cities, successor cultures became firmly established. The Tres Zapotes site, on the western edge of the Olmec heartland, continued to be occupied well by 400 BCE, but without the hallmarks of the Olmec culture. This post-Olmec culture, frequently labeled the Epi-Olmec, has features similar to those found at Izapa, some 550 kilometres (340 mi) to the southeast.[25]

Artifacts [edit]

Seated figurine; 12th–9th century BC; painted ceramic; peak: 34 cm, width: 31.viii cm, depth: 14.6 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)

Bird-shaped vessel; 12th–9th century BC; ceramic with cherry-red ochre; meridian: 16.5 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Fine art

The Olmec culture was commencement defined as an fine art style, and this continues to be the hallmark of the culture.[26] Wrought in a large number of media – jade, clay, basalt, and greenstone among others – much Olmec art, such as The Wrestler, is naturalistic. Other fine art expresses fantastic anthropomorphic creatures, oft highly stylized, using an iconography reflective of a religious meaning.[27] Mutual motifs include downturned mouths and a cleft head, both of which are seen in representations of werejaguars.[26] In addition to making man and homo-like subjects, Olmec artisans were proficient at animal portrayals.

While Olmec figurines are found abundantly in sites throughout the Formative Period, the stone monuments such as the colossal heads are the most recognizable feature of Olmec civilization.[28] These monuments can exist divided into four classes:[29]

  • Colossal heads (which can be up to 3 m (10 ft) tall);
  • Rectangular "altars" (more likely thrones)[ citation needed ] such equally Altar five shown beneath;
  • Costless-standing in-the-round sculpture, such equally the twins from El Azuzul or San Martín Pajapan Monument 1; and
  • Stele, such as La Venta Monument nineteen above. The stelae grade was generally introduced subsequently than the colossal heads, altars, or free-standing sculptures. Over time, the stele changed from uncomplicated representation of figures, such as Monument xix or La Venta Stela 1, toward representations of historical events, particularly acts legitimizing rulers. This trend would culminate in post-Olmec monuments such as La Mojarra Stela 1, which combines images of rulers with script and agenda dates.[30]

Colossal heads [edit]

The most recognized aspect of the Olmec civilization are the enormous helmeted heads.[31] As no known pre-Columbian text explains them, these impressive monuments have been the subject of much speculation. One time theorized to be ballplayers, it is at present generally accepted that these heads are portraits of rulers, perhaps dressed equally ballplayers.[32] Infused with individuality, no two heads are alike and the helmet-like headdresses are adorned with distinctive elements, suggesting personal or grouping symbols. Some have as well speculated that Mesoamerican people believed that the soul, along with all of one's experiences and emotions, was contained inside the head.[33] [34]

Seventeen jumbo heads have been unearthed to date.[35]

Site Count Designations
San Lorenzo 10 Jumbo Heads 1 through 10
La Venta 4 Monuments ane through iv
Tres Zapotes ii Monuments A & Q
Rancho la Cobata one Monument 1

The heads range in size from the Rancho La Cobata head, at three.iv m (11 ft) loftier, to the pair at Tres Zapotes, at 1.47 m (iv ft 10 in). Scholars calculate that the largest heads weigh betwixt 25 and 55 tonnes (28 and 61 curt tons).[36]

One of the mosaics from the La Venta Olmec site.

The heads were carved from single blocks or boulders of volcanic basalt, found in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas. The Tres Zapotes heads, for example, were sculpted from basalt found at the elevation of Cerro el Vigía, at the western stop of the Tuxtlas. The San Lorenzo and La Venta heads, on the other hand, were probably carved from the basalt of Cerro Cintepec, on the southeastern side,[37] maybe at the nearby Llano del Jicaro workshop, and dragged or floated to their last destination dozens of miles abroad.[38] Information technology has been estimated that moving a colossal head required the efforts of 1,500 people for three to four months.[14]

Some of the heads, and many other monuments, have been variously mutilated, buried and disinterred, reset in new locations and/or reburied. Some monuments, and at least two heads, were recycled or recarved, but information technology is non known whether this was only due to the scarcity of stone or whether these actions had ritual or other connotations. Scholars believe that some mutilation had significance beyond mere destruction, but some scholars nonetheless practise non rule out internal conflicts or, less likely, invasion every bit a factor.[39]

The flat-faced, thick-lipped heads have caused some debate due to their resemblance to some African facial characteristics. Based on this comparing, some writers take said that the Olmecs were Africans who had emigrated to the New World.[xl] Only, the vast majority of archaeologists and other Mesoamerican scholars reject claims of pre-Columbian contacts with Africa.[41] Explanations for the facial features of the colossal heads include the possibility that the heads were carved in this manner due to the shallow space allowed on the basalt boulders. Others notation that in addition to the broad noses and thick lips, the eyes of the heads oftentimes show the epicanthic fold, and that all these characteristics can still be found in modern Mesoamerican Indians. For instance, in the 1940s, the artist/art historian Miguel Covarrubias published a serial of photos of Olmec artworks and of the faces of mod Mexican Indians with very like facial characteristics.[42] The African origin hypothesis assumes that Olmec carving was intended to be a representation of the inhabitants, an assumption that is hard to justify given the total corpus of representation in Olmec carving.[43]

Ivan Van Sertima claimed that the 7 braids on the Tres Zapotes caput was an Ethiopian hair style, but he offered no evidence it was a contemporary style. The Egyptologist Frank J. Yurco has said that the Olmec braids do not resemble contemporary Egyptian or Nubian braids.[44]

Richard Diehl wrote "There can be no dubiety that the heads depict the American Indian concrete blazon nevertheless seen on the streets of Soteapan, Acayucan, and other towns in the region."[45]

Jade face masks [edit]

Another type of artifact is much smaller; hardstone carvings in jade of a face up in a mask form. Jade is a particularly precious material, and it was used as a mark of rank past the ruling classes.[46] By 1500 BCE early Olmec sculptors mastered the human class.[33] This tin can be determined by wooden Olmec sculptures discovered in the swampy bogs of El Manati.[33] Before radiocarbon dating could tell the exact age of Olmec pieces, archaeologists and fine art historians noticed the unique "Olmec-style" in a variety of artifacts.[33]

Curators and scholars refer to "Olmec-mode" face masks but, to appointment, no example has been recovered in an archaeologically controlled Olmec context. They have been recovered from sites of other cultures, including ane deliberately deposited in the ceremonial altepetl (precinct) of Tenochtitlan in what is at present Mexico Metropolis. The mask would presumably have been about 2000 years old when the Aztecs buried it, suggesting such masks were valued and nerveless every bit were Roman antiquities in Europe.[47] The 'Olmec-fashion' refers to the combination of deep-set eyes, nostrils, and stiff, slightly asymmetrical mouth.[33] The "Olmec-style" also very distinctly combines facial features of both humans and jaguars.[48] Olmec arts are strongly tied to the Olmec faith, which prominently featured jaguars.[48] The Olmec people believed that in the distant past a race of werejaguars was made between the matrimony of a jaguar and a woman.[48] One werejaguar quality that can exist found is the sharp cleft in the forehead of many supernatural beings in Olmec art. This precipitous cleft is associated with the natural indented head of jaguars.[48]

  • Mask; 10th–6th century BCE; jadeite; height: 17.1 cm, width: 16.5 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kunz axes [edit]

The Kunz axes (also known as "votive axes") are figures that represent werejaguars and were apparently used for rituals. In most cases, the caput is half the full volume of the figure. All Kunz axes take apartment noses and an open mouth. The name "Kunz" comes from George Frederick Kunz, an American mineralogist, who described a figure in 1890.

Beyond the heartland [edit]

The major Formative Period (Pre-Classic Era) sites in present-day Mexico which testify Olmec influences in the archaeological record.

Olmec-style artifacts, designs, figurines, monuments and iconography have been found in the archaeological records of sites hundreds of kilometres outside the Olmec heartland. These sites include:[49]

Key Mexico [edit]

Tlatilco and Tlapacoya, major centers of the Tlatilco civilization in the Valley of Mexico, where artifacts include hollow infant-face up motif figurines and Olmec designs on ceramics.

Chalcatzingo, in Valley of Morelos, central Mexico, which features Olmec-style monumental art and rock fine art with Olmec-style figures.

Also, in 2007, archaeologists unearthed Zazacatla, an Olmec-influenced city in Morelos. Located well-nigh 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Mexico City, Zazacatla covered about 2.5 square kilometres (1 sq mi) between 800 and 500 BCE.[l]

Western United mexican states [edit]

Teopantecuanitlan, in Guerrero, which features Olmec-fashion awe-inspiring fine art as well every bit city plans with distinctive Olmec features.

Also, the Juxtlahuaca and Oxtotitlán cavern paintings feature Olmec designs and motifs.[51]

Southern United mexican states and Guatemala [edit]

Olmec influence is besides seen at several sites in the Southern Maya area.

In Guatemala, sites showing probable Olmec influence include San Bartolo, Takalik Abaj and La Democracia.

Nature of interaction [edit]

Many theories accept been advanced to account for the occurrence of Olmec influence far exterior the heartland, including long-range trade by Olmec merchants, Olmec colonization of other regions, Olmec artisans travelling to other cities, conscious imitation of Olmec artistic styles by developing towns – some fifty-fifty suggest the prospect of Olmec military domination or that the Olmec iconography was actually adult outside the heartland.[52]

The mostly accustomed, but past no means unanimous, interpretation is that the Olmec-way artifacts, in all sizes, became associated with elite status and were adopted by non-Olmec Determinative Period chieftains in an effort to bolster their status.[53]

Notable innovations [edit]

In add-on to their influence with contemporaneous Mesoamerican cultures, as the starting time civilization in Mesoamerica, the Olmecs are credited, or speculatively credited, with many "firsts", including the bloodletting and perchance human sacrifice, writing and epigraphy, and the invention of popcorn, nil and the Mesoamerican calendar, and the Mesoamerican ballgame, as well as maybe the compass.[54] Some researchers, including creative person and art historian Miguel Covarrubias, fifty-fifty postulate that the Olmecs formulated the forerunners of many of the later Mesoamerican deities.[55]

Bloodletting and sacrifice speculation [edit]

Although the archaeological record does not include explicit representation of Olmec bloodletting,[56] researchers have found other prove that the Olmec ritually adept it. For example, numerous natural and ceramic stingray spikes and maguey thorns have been plant at Olmec sites,[57] and sure artifacts have been identified as bloodletters.[58]

The argument that the Olmec instituted homo cede is significantly more speculative. No Olmec or Olmec-influenced sacrificial artifacts have however been discovered; no Olmec or Olmec-influenced artwork unambiguously shows sacrificial victims (as do the danzante figures of Monte Albán) or scenes of human cede (such every bit can exist seen in the famous ballcourt mural from El Tajín).[59]

At El Manatí, disarticulated skulls and femurs, too equally the complete skeletons of newborn or unborn children, accept been discovered amidst the other offerings, leading to speculation concerning babe cede. Scholars take non determined how the infants met their deaths.[60] Some authors have associated infant sacrifice with Olmec ritual art showing limp werejaguar babies, most famously in La Venta's Chantry 5 (on the right) or Las Limas effigy.[61] Any definitive answer requires farther findings.

Writing [edit]

The Olmec may accept been the showtime civilization in the Western Hemisphere to develop a writing organisation. Symbols constitute in 2002 and 2006 date from 650 BCE[62] and 900 BCE[63] respectively, preceding the oldest Zapotec writing found then far, which dates from about 500 BCE.[64] [65]

The 2002 find at the San Andrés site shows a bird, speech scrolls, and glyphs that are similar to the after Maya script.[66] Known as the Cascajal Block, and dated between 1100 BCE and 900 BCE, the 2006 detect from a site near San Lorenzo shows a prepare of 62 symbols, 28 of which are unique, carved on a serpentine cake. A large number of prominent archaeologists have hailed this observe as the "primeval pre-Columbian writing".[67] Others are skeptical because of the stone's singularity, the fact that information technology had been removed from any archaeological context, and because it bears no apparent resemblance to whatever other Mesoamerican writing system.[68]

There are too well-documented subsequently hieroglyphs known every bit the Isthmian script, and while at that place are some who believe that the Isthmian may stand for a transitional script between an earlier Olmec writing system and the Maya script, the matter remains unsettled.

Mesoamerican Long Count calendar and invention of the zero concept [edit]

The dorsum of Stela C from Tres Zapotes
This is the second oldest Long Count engagement yet discovered. The numerals 7.xvi.6.16.18 interpret to three September 32 BCE (Julian). The glyphs surrounding the date are ane of the few surviving examples of Epi-Olmec script.[69]

The Long Count agenda used past many subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations, every bit well as the concept of cipher, may have been devised past the Olmecs. Because the six artifacts with the earliest Long Count calendar dates were all discovered outside the immediate Maya homeland, it is likely that this agenda predated the Maya and was possibly the invention of the Olmecs. Indeed, iii of these six artifacts were found within the Olmec heartland. But an argument against an Olmec origin is the fact that the Olmec civilization had ended by the 4th century BCE, several centuries before the earliest known Long Count engagement artifact.[70]

The Long Count calendar required the use of nix as a place-holder inside its vigesimal (base-20) positional numeral system. A shell glyph –MAYA-g-num-0-inc-v1.svg – was used as a zip symbol for these Long Count dates, the second oldest of which, on Stela C at Tres Zapotes, has a date of 32 BCE. This is one of the primeval uses of the zero concept in history.[71]

Mesoamerican ballgame [edit]

The Olmec are stiff candidates for originating the Mesoamerican ballgame so prevalent amidst later cultures of the region and used for recreational and religious purposes.[72] A dozen rubber balls dating to 1600 BCE or earlier have been institute in El Manatí, a bog x km (6 mi) east of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan.[73] These balls predate the earliest ballcourt yet discovered at Paso de la Amada, c. 1400 BCE, although in that location is no certainty that they were used in the ballgame.[74]

Ethnicity and language [edit]

While the actual ethno-linguistic affiliation of the Olmec remains unknown, various hypotheses have been put forward. For example, in 1968 Michael D. Coe speculated that the Olmec were Maya predecessors.[75]

In 1976, linguists Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman published a paper in which they argued a core number of loanwords had apparently spread from a Mixe–Zoquean linguistic communication into many other Mesoamerican languages.[76] Campbell and Kaufman proposed that the presence of these core loanwords indicated that the Olmec – generally regarded as the first "highly civilized" Mesoamerican society – spoke a language ancestral to Mixe–Zoquean. The spread of this vocabulary particular to their culture accompanied the diffusion of other Olmec cultural and artistic traits that appears in the archaeological record of other Mesoamerican societies.

Mixe–Zoque specialist Søren Wichmann starting time critiqued this theory on the basis that virtually of the Mixe–Zoquean loans seemed to originate only from the Zoquean branch of the family. This unsaid the loanword transmission occurred in the period later the two branches of the linguistic communication family split, placing the time of the borrowings outside of the Olmec catamenia.[77] However, new testify has pushed dorsum the proposed date for the split up of Mixean and Zoquean languages to a menstruation within the Olmec era.[78] Based on this dating, the architectural and archaeological patterns and the particulars of the vocabulary loaned to other Mesoamerican languages from Mixe–Zoquean, Wichmann now suggests that the Olmecs of San Lorenzo spoke proto-Mixe and the Olmecs of La Venta spoke proto-Zoque.[78]

At least the fact that the Mixe–Zoquean languages are still spoken in an area corresponding roughly to the Olmec heartland, and are historically known to have been spoken there, leads most scholars to presume that the Olmec spoke one or more Mixe–Zoquean languages.[79]

Religion and mythology [edit]

Olmec religious activities were performed by a combination of rulers, full-time priests, and shamans. The rulers seem to have been the most important religious figures, with their links to the Olmec deities or supernaturals providing legitimacy for their dominion.[80] There is too considerable prove for shamans in the Olmec archaeological record, especially in the then-called "transformation figures".[81]

As Olmec mythology has left no documents comparable to the Popol Vuh from Maya mythology, whatever exposition of Olmec mythology must exist based on interpretations of surviving awe-inspiring and portable art (such every bit the Señor de Las Limas statue at the Xalapa Museum), and comparisons with other Mesoamerican mythologies. Olmec art shows that such deities as Feathered Serpent and a pelting supernatural were already in the Mesoamerican pantheon in Olmec times.[82]

Social and political organization [edit]

Little is directly known nigh the societal or political structure of Olmec society. Although it is assumed by about researchers that the colossal heads and several other sculptures represent rulers, nothing has been found like the Maya stelae which name specific rulers and provide the dates of their rule.[83]

Instead, archaeologists relied on the data that they had, such equally big- and small-scale site surveys. These provided show of considerable centralization within the Olmec region, first at San Lorenzo and so at La Venta – no other Olmec sites come close to these in terms of area or in the quantity and quality of architecture and sculpture.[84]

This evidence of geographic and demographic centralization leads archaeologists to propose that Olmec society itself was hierarchical, concentrated first at San Lorenzo then at La Venta, with an elite that was able to use their control over materials such as water and monumental rock to exert command and legitimize their regime.[85]

Still, Olmec society is thought to lack many of the institutions of later civilizations, such as a standing army or priestly caste.[86] And there is no evidence that San Lorenzo or La Venta controlled, even during their heyday, all of the Olmec heartland.[87] At that place is some doubtfulness, for instance, that La Venta controlled fifty-fifty Arroyo Sonso, only some 35 km (22 mi) abroad.[88] Studies of the Sierra de los Tuxtlas settlements, some 60 km (35 mi) abroad, indicate that this area was composed of more or less egalitarian communities outside the control of lowland centers.[89]

Merchandise [edit]

The broad diffusion of Olmec artifacts and "Olmecoid" iconography throughout much of Mesoamerica indicates the existence of all-encompassing long-distance trade networks. Exotic, prestigious and high-value materials such as greenstone and marine beat out were moved in significant quantities beyond big distances. Some of the reasons for trade revolve around the lack of obsidian in the heartland. The Olmec used obsidian in many tools because worked edges were very precipitous and durable. Most of the obsidian found has been traced dorsum to Republic of guatemala showing the extensive merchandise.[90] While the Olmec were not the beginning in Mesoamerica to organize long-distance exchanges of appurtenances, the Olmec period saw a significant expansion in interregional trade routes, more variety in textile goods exchanged and a greater diversity in the sources from which the base materials were obtained.

Hamlet life and diet [edit]

Despite their size and deliberate urban blueprint, which was copied by other centers,[91] San Lorenzo and La Venta were largely ceremonial centers, and the majority of the Olmec lived in villages similar to present-day villages and hamlets in Tabasco and Veracruz.[92]

These villages were located on higher ground and consisted of several scattered houses. A minor temple may have been associated with the larger villages. The individual dwellings would consist of a business firm, an associated lean-to, and one or more storage pits (similar in role to a root cellar). A nearby garden was used for medicinal and cooking herbs and for smaller crops, such as the domesticated sunflower. Fruit trees, such as avocado or cacao, were probably bachelor nearby.

Although the river banks were used to plant crops between flooding periods, the Olmecs probably too practiced slash-and-burn agriculture to articulate the forests and shrubs, and to provide new fields once the old fields were exhausted.[93] Fields were located outside the hamlet, and were used for maize, beans, squash, cassava, and sweet tater. Based on archaeological studies of 2 villages in the Tuxtlas Mountains, information technology is known that maize cultivation became increasingly important to the Olmec over fourth dimension, although the diet remained fairly diverse.[94]

The fruits and vegetables were supplemented with fish, turtle, snake, and mollusks from the nearby rivers, and venereal and shellfish in the coastal areas. Birds were available as food sources, equally were game including peccary, opossum, raccoon, rabbit, and in particular, deer.[95] Despite the wide range of hunting and fishing available, midden surveys in San Lorenzo have found that the domesticated canis familiaris was the single well-nigh plentiful source of animal protein.[96]

History of archaeological inquiry [edit]

Kunz Axe; 1000-400 BCE; jadeite; meridian: 31 cm (12 3⁄16 in.), width sixteen cm (six

5⁄sixteen in.), 11 cm (4

v⁄16 in.); American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY, USA). The jade Kunz Axe, starting time described past George Kunz in 1890. Although shaped like an axe head, with an border along the lesser, it is unlikely that this antiquity was used except in ritual settings. At a top of 28 cm (11 in), it is one of the largest jade objects ever found in Mesoamerica.[97]

Olmec culture was unknown to historians until the mid-19th century. In 1869, the Mexican antiquarian traveller José Melgar y Serrano published a description of the first Olmec monument to have been found in situ. This monument – the jumbo head now labelled Tres Zapotes Monument A – had been discovered in the late 1850s past a farm worker clearing forested land on a hacienda in Veracruz. Hearing about the curious find while travelling through the region, Melgar y Serrano first visited the site in 1862 to see for himself and complete the partially exposed sculpture'southward earthworks. His clarification of the object, published several years later after further visits to the site, represents the primeval documented report of an antiquity of what is now known equally the Olmec culture.[98]

In the latter half of the 19th century, Olmec artifacts such as the Kunz Axe (right) came to light and were subsequently recognized as belonging to a unique creative tradition.

Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge fabricated the kickoff detailed descriptions of La Venta and San Martin Pajapan Monument one during their 1925 expedition. However, at this time, about archaeologists causeless the Olmec were contemporaneous with the Maya – even Blom and La Farge were, in their ain words, "inclined to ascribe them to the Maya civilisation".[99]

Matthew Stirling of the Smithsonian Institution conducted the start detailed scientific excavations of Olmec sites in the 1930s and 1940s. Stirling, forth with art historian Miguel Covarrubias, became convinced that the Olmec predated most other known Mesoamerican civilizations.[100]

In counterpoint to Stirling, Covarrubias, and Alfonso Caso, however, Mayanists J. Eric Thompson and Sylvanus Morley argued for Classic-era dates for the Olmec artifacts. The question of Olmec chronology came to a head at a 1942 Tuxtla Gutierrez briefing, where Alfonso Caso declared that the Olmecs were the "mother culture" ("cultura madre") of Mesoamerica.[101]

Before long later on the briefing, radiocarbon dating proved the antiquity of the Olmec civilization, although the "mother civilisation" question generated considerable debate even lx years later.[102]

DNA [edit]

In the investigations of the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán Archaeological Project at the sites of San Lorenzo and Loma del Zapote, several man burials from the Olmec period were establish. The os consistency in two of them allowed the study of their mitochondrial Dna to be carried out successfully, as part of an investigation that proposes the comparative assay of the genetic information of the Olmecs with that obtained from subjects from other Mesoamerican societies under the advice of the specialists Dr. María de Lourdes Muñoz Moreno, Research Professor Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Establish (CINVESTAV-IPN), Mexico and Miguel Moreno Galeana, also from CINVESTAV-IPN. This pioneering study of mitochondrial Dna in 2018 was carried out on ii Olmec individuals, one from San Lorenzo and the other from Loma del Zapote, resulted, in both cases, in the unequivocal presence of the distinctive mutations of the haplogroup A maternal lineage. They share the virtually arable of the five mitochondrial haplogroups characteristic of the indigenous populations of the Americas: A, B, C, D and 10.[103] [104]

Etymology [edit]

The proper name "Olmec" means "rubber people" in Nahuatl, the language of the Nahuas, and was the Aztec Empire term for the people who lived in the Gulf Lowlands in the 15th and 16th centuries, some 2000 years after the Olmec civilization died out. The term "Condom People" refers to the ancient practice, spanning from aboriginal Olmecs to Aztecs, of extracting latex from Castilla elastica, a rubber tree in the expanse. The juice of a local vine, Ipomoea alba, was and so mixed with this latex to create rubber as early as 1600 BCE.[105]

Early mod explorers and archaeologists, however, mistakenly applied the name "Olmec" to the rediscovered ruins and artifacts in the heartland decades before information technology was understood that these were not created by the people the Aztecs knew as the "Olmec", but rather a culture that was 2000 years older. Despite the mistaken identity, the name has stuck.[106]

Information technology is non known what name the aboriginal Olmec used for themselves; some afterward Mesoamerican accounts seem to refer to the ancient Olmec as "Tamoanchan".[107] A contemporary term sometimes used for the Olmec civilization is tenocelome, meaning "mouth of the jaguar".[108]

Culling origin speculations [edit]

Partly because the Olmecs developed the first Mesoamerican civilization, and partly because little is known of them compared to, for case, the Maya or Aztec, a number of Olmec culling origin speculations have been put forth. Although several of these speculations, specially the theory that the Olmecs were of African origin popularized past Ivan Van Sertima'southward book They Came Before Columbus, have become well known within pop culture, they are not considered credible past the vast majority of Mesoamerican researchers and scientists, who discard them every bit pop-civilisation pseudo-science.[109]

As of 2018, mitochondrial Deoxyribonucleic acid study carried out on Olmec remains, one from San Lorenzo and the other from Loma del Zapote, resulted, in both cases, in the "unequivocal presence of the distinctive mutations of the "A" maternal lineage. That is, the origin of the Olmecs is not in Africa but in America, since they share the well-nigh abundant of the five mitochondrial haplogroups feature of the ethnic populations of our continent: A, B, C, D and X."[3]

Gallery [edit]

  • La Venta stele 19 with an early depiction of a feathered ophidian

  • Olmec Caput No.1, 1200–900 BCE

  • Kneeling man figure, 1200–600 BCE

  • Carved travertine vessel with an incised pattern, 12th–3rd century BCE

  • Three celts, Olmec ritual objects

  • Olmec were-jaguar

  • Olmec fashion bottle, reputedly from Las Bocas, 1100–800 BCE

  • Olmec jade mask

  • An Olmec "infant figurine"

Encounter also [edit]

  • El Azuzul – a modest archaeological site in the Olmec heartland
  • Cerro de las Mesas – a post-Olmec archaeological site
  • List of megalithic sites
  • List of Mesoamerican pyramids

Footnotes [edit]

  1. ^ Diehl, Richard A. (2004). The Olmecs : America'due south First Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson. pp. nine–25. ISBN0-500-28503-ix.
  2. ^ See Pool (2007) p. 2. Although at that place is wide agreement that the Olmec civilisation helped lay the foundations for the civilizations that followed, there is disagreement over the extent of the Olmec contributions, and even a proper definition of the Olmec "culture". Encounter "Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures" for a deeper treatment of this question.
  3. ^ Encounter, as one instance, Diehl, p. 11.
  4. ^ See Diehl, p. 108 for the "ancient America" superlatives. The artist and archaeologist Miguel Covarrubias (1957) p. 50 says that Olmec pieces are among the world's masterpieces.
  5. ^ Olmecas (n.d.). Recollect Quest. Retrieved 20 September 2012, from link Archived 24 October 2012 at the Wayback Motorcar
  6. ^ Coe (1968) p. 42
  7. ^ Dates from Puddle, p. one. Diehl gives a slightly earlier appointment of 1500 BCE (p. 9), but the aforementioned end-date. Whatsoever dates for the outset of the Olmec civilisation or culture are problematic as its rise was a gradual process. Virtually Olmec dates are based on radiocarbon dating (encounter e.g. Diehl, p. 10), which is but accurate within a given range (due east.chiliad. ±90 years in the case of early El Manatí layers), and much is still to be learned concerning early on Gulf lowland settlements.
  8. ^ Richard A Diehl, 2004, The Olmecs – America'southward Showtime Civilization London: Thames & Hudson, pp. 25, 27.
  9. ^ Diehl, 2004: pp. 23–24.
  10. ^ Beck, Roger B.; Linda Black; Larry S. Krieger; Phillip C. Naylor; Dahia Ibo Shabaka (1999). World History: Patterns of Interaction . Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell. ISBN0-395-87274-X.
  11. ^ Pool, pp. 26–27, provides a bang-up overview of this theory, and says: "The generation of nutrient surpluses is necessary for the evolution of social and political hierarchies and there is no doubt that loftier agronomical productivity, combined with the natural affluence of aquatic foods in the Gulf lowlands supported their growth."
  12. ^ Pool, p. 151.
  13. ^ Diehl, p. 132, or Pool, p. 150.
  14. ^ a b Pool, p. 103.
  15. ^ Evans, Susan Toby; Webster, David Fifty. (2000). Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Cardinal America: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 315. ISBN978-1-136-80185-iii.
  16. ^ Diehl, p. 9.
  17. ^ Coe (1967), p. 72. Alternatively, the mutilation of these monuments may be unrelated to the reject and abandonment of San Lorenzo. Some researchers believe that the mutilation had ritualistic aspects, especially since most mutilated monuments were reburied in a row.
  18. ^ Puddle, p. 135. Diehl, pp. 58–59, 82.
  19. ^ Diehl, p. 9. Pool gives dates k BCE – 400 BCE for La Venta.
  20. ^ Pool, p. 157.
  21. ^ Pool, p. 161–162.
  22. ^ Diehl, p. 82. Nagy, p. 270, however, is more circumspect, stating that in the Grijalva river delta, on the eastern edge of the heartland, "the local population had significantly declined in credible population density ... A low-density Tardily Preclassic and Early on Classic occupation . . . may take existed; withal, it remains invisible."
  23. ^ Quote and analysis from Diehl, p. 82, echoed in other works such every bit Pool.
  24. ^ Vanderwarker (2006) pp. fifty–51
  25. ^ Coe (2002), p. 88.
  26. ^ a b Coe (2002), p. 62.
  27. ^ Coe (2002), p. 88 and others.
  28. ^ Pool, p. 105.
  29. ^ Puddle, p. 106. Diehl, pp. 109–115.
  30. ^ Pool, pp. 106–108, 176.
  31. ^ Diehl, p. 111.
  32. ^ Pool, p. 118; Diehl, p. 112. Coe (2002), p. 69: "They vesture headgear rather similar American football helmets which probably served as protection in both war and in the ceremonial game played...throughout Mesoamerica."
  33. ^ a b c d due east Miller, Mary Ellen. "The Fine art of Mesoamerica From Olmec to Aztec." Thames & Hudson; fourth edition (20 October 2006).
  34. ^ Grove, p. 55.
  35. ^ Pool, p. 107.
  36. ^ In item, Williams and Heizer (p. 29) calculated the weight of San Lorenzo Colossal Caput one at 25.3 short tons, or 23 tonnes. See Scarre. pp. 271–274 for the "55 tonnes" weight.
  37. ^ See Williams and Heizer for more detail.
  38. ^ Scarre. Pool, p. 129.
  39. ^ Diehl, p. 119.
  40. ^ Wiercinski, A. (1972). "Inter-and Intrapopulational Racial Differentiation of Tlatilco, Cerro de Las Mesas, Teothuacan, Monte Alban and Yucatan Maya," XXXIX Congreso Intern. de Americanistas, Lima 1970, 1, 231–252.
  41. ^ Karl Taube, for one, says "There only is no cloth evidence of any Pre-Hispanic contact between the Old Globe and Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century.", p. 17.
    • Davis, Northward. Voyagers to the New World, University of New Mexico Press, 1979 ISBN 0-8263-0880-5
    • Williams, Due south. Fantastic Archæology, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991 ISBN 0-8122-1312-2
    • Feder, K.50. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries. Scientific discipline and Pseudoscience in Archaeology 3rd ed., Trade Mayfield ISBN 0-7674-0459-9
  42. ^ Mexico South, Covarrubias, 1946
  43. ^ Ortiz de Montellano, et al. 1997, p. 217
  44. ^ Haslip-Viera, Gabriel: Bernard Ortiz de Montellano; Warren Barbour Source "Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs," Current Anthropology, 38 (3), (Tun., 1997), pp. 419–441
  45. ^ Diehl, Richard A. (2004). The Olmecs: America's Kickoff Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 112. ISBN0-500-28503-9.
  46. ^ Milliken, William K. "Pre-Columbian Jade and Hard Stone." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 36, no. 4 (April 1949): 53–55. Accessed 17 March 2018.
  47. ^ "University of East Anglia collections", Artworld
  48. ^ a b c d The British Museum. "Olmec Rock Mask." Smarthistory.com.
  49. ^ Meet Pool, pp. 179–242; Diehl, pp. 126–151.
  50. ^ Stefan Lovgren, Aboriginal Urban center Found in Mexico; Shows Olmec Influence. National Geographic News, 26 Jan 2007
  51. ^ For example, Diehl, p. 170 or Pool, p. 54.
  52. ^ Flannery et al. (2005) hint that Olmec iconography was starting time adult in the Tlatilco civilization.
  53. ^ See for example Reilly; Stevens (2007); Rose (2007). For a full discussion, run into Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures.
  54. ^ See Carlson for details of the compass.
  55. ^ Covarrubias, p. 27.
  56. ^ Taube (2004), p. 122.
  57. ^ As one example, come across Joyce et al., "Olmec Bloodletting: An Iconographic Study".
  58. ^ Come across Taube (2004), p. 122.
  59. ^ Pool, p. 139.
  60. ^ Ortiz et al., p. 249.
  61. ^ Pool, p. 116. Joralemon (1996), p. 218.
  62. ^ See Pohl et al. (2002).
  63. ^ "Writing May Exist Oldest in Western Hemisphere". The New York Times. 15 September 2006. Retrieved xxx March 2008. A stone slab bearing 3,000-yr-erstwhile writing previously unknown to scholars has been found in the Mexican land of Veracruz, and archaeologists say it is an instance of the oldest script ever discovered in the Americas.
  64. ^ "'Oldest' New World writing found". BBC. 14 September 2006. Retrieved xxx March 2008. Aboriginal civilisations in Mexico developed a writing system as early equally 900 BC, new evidence suggests.
  65. ^ "Oldest Writing in the New World". Science . Retrieved 30 March 2008. A cake with a hitherto unknown arrangement of writing has been found in the Olmec heartland of Veracruz, Mexico. Stylistic and other dating of the block places it in the early on offset millennium before the mutual era, the oldest writing in the New World, with features that firmly assign this pivotal development to the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica.
  66. ^ Pohl et al. (2002).
  67. ^ Skidmore. These prominent proponents include Michael D. Coe, Richard Diehl, Karl Taube, and Stephen D. Houston.
  68. ^ Bruhns, et al.
  69. ^ Diehl, p. 184.
  70. ^ "Mesoamerican Long Count calendar & invention of the cipher concept" section cited to Diehl, p. 186.
  71. ^ Haughton, p. 153. The earliest recovered Long Count dated is from Monument 1 in the Maya site El Baúl, Republic of guatemala, bearing a date of 37 BCE.
  72. ^ Miller and Taube (1993) p. 42. Pool, p. 295.
  73. ^ Ortiz C.
  74. ^ Meet Filloy Nadal, p. 27, who says "If they [the balls] were used in the ballgame, we would be looking at the earliest evidence of this practice".
  75. ^ Coe (1968) p. 121.
  76. ^ Campbell & Kaufman (1976), pp. eighty–89. For example, the words for "incense", "cacao", "corn", many names of various fruits, "nagual/shaman", "tobacco", "adobe", "ladder", "rubber", "corn granary", "squash/gourd", and "paper" in many Mesoamerican languages seem to take been borrowed from an ancient Mixe–Zoquean language.
  77. ^ Wichmann (1995).
  78. ^ a b Wichmann, Beliaev & Davletshin, (in press Sep 2008).
  79. ^ Run across Pool, p. vi, or Diehl, p. 85.
  80. ^ Diehl, p. 106. See likewise J. E. Clark, p. 343, who says "much of the fine art of La Venta appears to have been dedicated to rulers who dressed as gods, or to the gods themselves".
  81. ^ Diehl, p. 106.
  82. ^ Diehl, pp. 103–104.
  83. ^ See, for case, Cyphers (1996), p. 156.
  84. ^ Run across Santley, et al., p.4, for a discussion of Mesoamerican centralization and decentralization. See Cyphers (1999) for a discussion of the meaning of monument placement.
  85. ^ Run into Cyphers (1999) for a more detailed give-and-take.
  86. ^ Serra Puche et al., p. 36, who contend that "While Olmec art sometimes represents leaders, priests, and mayhap soldiers, it is difficult to imagine that such institutions as the army, priest caste, or authoritative-political groups were already fully developed by Olmec times." They get on to downplay the possibility of a strong central government.
  87. ^ Pool, p. xx.
  88. ^ Pool, p. 164.
  89. ^ Pool, p. 175.
  90. ^ Hirth, Kenneth; Cyphers, Ann; Cobean, Robert; De León, Jason; Glascock, Michael D. (2013). "Early Olmec obsidian trade and economic system at San Lorenzo". Journal of Archaeological Science. twoscore (vi): 2784–2798. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2013.01.033.
  91. ^ "Chiapa de Corzo Archaeological Projection". Brigham Young University. Retrieved xviii March 2012.
  92. ^ Except where otherwise (foot)noted, this Village life and diet department is referenced to Diehl (2004), Davies, and Pope et al.
  93. ^ Pohl.
  94. ^ VanDerwarker, p. 195, and Lawler, Archaeology (2007), p. 23, quoting VanDerwarker.
  95. ^ VanDerwarker, pp. 141–144.
  96. ^ Davies, p. 39.
  97. ^ Benson (1996) p. 263.
  98. ^ Meet translated excerpt from Melgar y Serrano's original 1869 report, reprinted in Adams (1991), p. 56. Meet besides Pool (2007), pp. ane, 35 and Stirling (1968), p. 8.
  99. ^ Quoted in Coe (1968), p. twoscore.
  100. ^ Coe (1968), pp. 42–l.
  101. ^ "Esta gran cultura, que encontramos en niveles antiguos, es sin duda madre de otras culturas, como la maya, la teotihuacana, la zapoteca, la de El Tajín, y otras" ("This great civilization, which we encounter in ancient levels, is without a dubiousness mother of other cultures, like the Maya, the Teotihuacana, the Zapotec, that of El Tajin, and others".) Caso (1942), p. 46.
  102. ^ Coe (1968), p. 50.
  103. ^ Genetic Affiliation of Pre-Hispanic and Contemporary Mayas Through Maternal Linage (Ochoa-Lugo 2016) [i]
  104. ^ Villamar Becerril Enrique, "Estudios de ADN y el origen de los olmecas", Arqueología Mexicana, núm. 150, pp. 40-41.(2019)[2]
  105. ^ Rubber Processing, MIT.
  106. ^ Diehl, p. fourteen.
  107. ^ Coe (2002) refers to an old Nahuatl poem cited past Miguel Leon-Portilla, which itself refers to a country chosen "Tamoanchan":

    in a certain era
    which no 1 tin can reckon
    which no one can call back
    [where] there was a authorities for a long time".

    Coe interprets Tamoanchan as a Mayan linguistic communication word meaning 'State of Rain or Mist' (p. 61).
  108. ^ The term "tenocelome" is used every bit early as 1967 past George Kubler in American Anthropologist, v. 69, p. 404.
  109. ^ See Grove (1976) or Ortiz de Montellano (1997).

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External links [edit]

  • Drawings and photographs of the 17 jumbo heads
  • "Stone Etchings Represent Earliest New World Writing". Scientific American; Ma. del Carmen Rodríguez Martínez, Ponciano Ortíz Ceballos, Michael D. Coe, Richard A. Diehl, Stephen D. Houston, Karl A. Taube, Alfredo Delgado Calderón, Oldest Writing in the New Globe, Scientific discipline, Vol 313, 15 September 2006, pp. 1610–1614.
  • BBC audio file. Discussion of Olmec culture (xv mins) A History of the Globe in 100 Objects
  • Smithsonian Olmec Legacy

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmecs

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