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Which Works of Art by the Olmec Civilization Are Considered Its Most Recognizable Artifacts?

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Mesoamerican civilisation

Olmecs
Olmec Heartland Overview 4.svg

The Olmec heartland, where the Olmec reigned from 1400 to 400 BCE
Geographical range Veracruz, United mexican states
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 Primitive Mesoamerica
Followed past 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 awe-inspiring and miniature portrayals of what are assumed to be persons of authorization-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 mod-twenty-four hour period Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in function from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe–Zoque cultures.

The Olmecs flourished during Mesoamerica'south formative period, dating roughly from as early as 1500 BCE to about 400 BCE. Pre-Olmec cultures had flourished since about 2500 BCE, only by 1600–1500 BCE, early Olmec civilisation had emerged, centered on the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán site most the declension in southeast Veracruz.[one] They were the showtime Mesoamerican civilization, and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed.[2] Among other "firsts", the Olmec appeared to practice ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican abortion, hallmarks of most all subsequent Mesoamerican societies. The attribute of the Olmecs most familiar now is their artwork, specially the aptly named "colossal heads".[three] The Olmec civilization was first defined through artifacts which collectors purchased on the pre-Columbian art marketplace in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries. Olmec artworks are considered among ancient America'southward most striking.[4]

Etymology [edit]

The proper noun 'Olmec' comes from the Nahuatl give-and-take for the Olmecs: Ōlmēcatl [oːlˈmeːkat͡ɬ] (atypical) or Ōlmēcah [oːlˈmeːkaʔ] (plural). This word is composed of the two words ōlli [ˈoːlːi], meaning "natural safety", and mēcatl [ˈmeːkat͡ɬ], meaning "people", so the word means "rubber people".[v] [6] Condom was an of import role of the ancient Mesoamerican ballgame.

Overview [edit]

The Olmec heartland is the area in the Gulf lowlands where it expanded after early development in Soconusco, Veracruz. This surface area is characterized by swampy lowlands punctuated by depression hills, ridges, and volcanoes. The Sierra de los Tuxtlas rises sharply in the north, along the Gulf of Mexico'south Bay of Campeche. Here, the Olmec synthetic permanent city-temple complexes at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, La Venta, Tres Zapotes, and Laguna de los Cerros. In this region, the first Mesoamerican civilization emerged and reigned from c.  1400–400 BCE.[7]

Origins [edit]

The ancestry of Olmec civilisation have traditionally been placed between 1400 and 1200 BCE. Past finds of Olmec remains ritually deposited at the shrine El Manatí nigh the triple archaeological sites known collectively every bit San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán moved this back to "at least" 1600–1500 BCE.[8] Information technology 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 civilization.[9]

What is today called Olmec starting time appeared fully within San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, where distinctive Olmec features occurred around 1400 BCE. The ascent of civilization was assisted by the local ecology of well-watered alluvial soil, as well equally by the transportation network provided by the Coatzacoalcos river basin. This environment may be compared to that of other ancient centers of civilization: the Nile, Indus, and Yellow River valleys and Mesopotamia. This highly productive environment encouraged a densely concentrated population, which in plough triggered the rise of an elite class.[10] The aristocracy class created the demand for the production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmec civilization.[eleven] Many of these luxury artifacts were made from materials such every bit jade, obsidian, and magnetite, which came from afar locations and propose that early Olmec elites had admission to an all-encompassing 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) away, respectively.[fourteen]

The state of Guerrero, and in particular its early Mezcala civilization, seem to take played an of import role in the early history of Olmec civilization. Olmec-style artifacts tend to appear earlier in some parts of Guerrero than in the Veracruz-Tabasco area. In item, the relevant objects from the Amuco-Abelino site in Guerrero reveal dates as early equally 1530 BCE.[15] The city of Teopantecuanitlan in Guerrero is also relevant in this regard.

La Venta [edit]

The first Olmec center, San Lorenzo, was all only abased around 900 BCE at about the same time that La Venta rose to prominence.[16] A wholesale destruction of many San Lorenzo monuments also occurred c. 950s BCE, which may indicate an internal insurgence or, less probable, an invasion.[17] The latest thinking, however, is that environmental changes may accept been responsible for this shift in Olmec centers, with certain of import rivers changing class.[18]

In whatsoever case, following the refuse of San Lorenzo, La Venta became the most prominent Olmec centre, 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 Keen Pyramid was the largest Mesoamerican structure of its time. Even today, after 2500 years of erosion, it rises 34 m (112 ft) above the naturally flat mural.[20] Buried deep within La Venta lay opulent, labor-intensive "offerings" – grand tons of smooth serpentine blocks, large mosaic pavements, and at least 48 dissever votive offerings of polished jade celts, pottery, figurines, and hematite mirrors.[21]

Turn down [edit]

Scholars have yet to make up one's mind the cause of the eventual extinction of the Olmec culture. 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 result of "very serious environmental changes that rendered the region unsuited for big groups of farmers", in particular changes to the riverine environment that the Olmec depended upon for agriculture, hunting and gathering, and transportation. These changes may accept been triggered by tectonic upheavals or subsidence, or the siltation of rivers due to agronomical practices.[23]

1 theory for the considerable population drop during the Terminal Formative menstruation 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, Late and Terminal Determinative periods would have blanketed the lands and forced the Olmec to move their settlements.[24]

Whatsoever 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 past 400 BCE, but without the hallmarks of the Olmec culture. This mail-Olmec civilization, often 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; height: 34 cm, width: 31.8 cm, depth: 14.6 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York Urban center)

Bird-shaped vessel; 12th–9th century BC; ceramic with red ochre; height: 16.five cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Olmec culture was start defined as an art style, and this continues to exist the hallmark of the culture.[26] Wrought in a big number of media – jade, dirt, basalt, and greenstone amongst others – much Olmec fine art, such every bit The Wrestler, is naturalistic. Other art expresses fantastic anthropomorphic creatures, often highly stylized, using an iconography reflective of a religious meaning.[27] Common motifs include downturned mouths and a crevice head, both of which are seen in representations of werejaguars.[26] In add-on to making man and human-like subjects, Olmec artisans were practiced at animal portrayals.

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

  • Colossal heads (which tin be up to iii m (10 ft) tall);
  • Rectangular "altars" (more likely thrones)[ citation needed ] such as Altar 5 shown below;
  • Free-standing in-the-round sculpture, such as the twins from El Azuzul or San Martín Pajapan Monument one; and
  • Stele, such every bit La Venta Monument 19 above. The stelae course was generally introduced later on than the colossal heads, altars, or free-standing sculptures. Over time, the stele changed from elementary representation of figures, such every bit Monument nineteen or La Venta Stela 1, toward representations of historical events, peculiarly acts legitimizing rulers. This tendency would culminate in post-Olmec monuments such as La Mojarra Stela one, which combines images of rulers with script and calendar dates.[30]

Jumbo heads [edit]

The nigh 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. Once theorized to be ballplayers, it is at present generally accepted that these heads are portraits of rulers, perhaps dressed as ballplayers.[32] Infused with individuality, no ii heads are alike and the helmet-like headdresses are adorned with distinctive elements, suggesting personal or group symbols. Some have besides speculated that Mesoamerican people believed that the soul, along with all of ane'due south experiences and emotions, was contained inside the head.[33] [34]

Seventeen colossal heads have been unearthed to appointment.[35]

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

The heads range in size from the Rancho La Cobata head, at 3.iv g (xi ft) high, to the pair at Tres Zapotes, at 1.47 g (4 ft ten in). Scholars calculate that the largest heads counterbalance between 25 and 55 tonnes (28 and 61 short tons).[36]

I 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 plant at the pinnacle of Cerro el Vigía, at the western end of the Tuxtlas. The San Lorenzo and La Venta heads, on the other mitt, were probably carved from the basalt of Cerro Cintepec, on the southeastern side,[37] perhaps at the nearby Llano del Jicaro workshop, and dragged or floated to their final destination dozens of miles away.[38] Information technology has been estimated that moving a colossal head required the efforts of 1,500 people for iii to four months.[xiv]

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 ii heads, were recycled or recarved, but it is not known whether this was simply due to the scarcity of stone or whether these deportment had ritual or other connotations. Scholars believe that some mutilation had significance beyond mere devastation, but some scholars still do not rule out internal conflicts or, less likely, invasion as a factor.[39]

The flat-faced, thick-lipped heads accept caused some debate due to their resemblance to some African facial characteristics. Based on this comparison, some writers take said that the Olmecs were Africans who had emigrated to the New Globe.[forty] Merely, 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 immune on the basalt boulders. Others note that in addition to the broad noses and thick lips, the eyes of the heads often evidence the epicanthic fold, and that all these characteristics can notwithstanding be found in modern Mesoamerican Indians. For instance, in the 1940s, the creative person/art historian Miguel Covarrubias published a series of photos of Olmec artworks and of the faces of modernistic 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 seven braids on the Tres Zapotes caput was an Ethiopian pilus style, but he offered no evidence information technology was a contemporary style. The Egyptologist Frank J. Yurco has said that the Olmec braids do non resemble contemporary Egyptian or Nubian braids.[44]

Richard Diehl wrote "There tin be no incertitude that the heads depict the American Indian physical type still 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 grade. Jade is a peculiarly precious material, and information technology was used as a mark of rank by the ruling classes.[46] Past 1500 BCE early on Olmec sculptors mastered the human form.[33] This can be adamant past 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 art historians noticed the unique "Olmec-style" in a multifariousness of artifacts.[33]

Curators and scholars refer to "Olmec-manner" face masks but, to date, no example has been recovered in an archaeologically controlled Olmec context. They accept been recovered from sites of other cultures, including one deliberately deposited in the ceremonial altepetl (precinct) of Tenochtitlan in what is now Mexico City. The mask would presumably accept been about 2000 years old when the Aztecs buried it, suggesting such masks were valued and collected as were Roman antiquities in Europe.[47] The 'Olmec-style' refers to the combination of deep-set eyes, nostrils, and potent, slightly asymmetrical oral cavity.[33] The "Olmec-style" besides very distinctly combines facial features of both humans and jaguars.[48] Olmec arts are strongly tied to the Olmec religion, which prominently featured jaguars.[48] The Olmec people believed that in the distant past a race of werejaguars was fabricated between the union of a jaguar and a woman.[48] One werejaguar quality that tin can be establish is the precipitous cleft in the forehead of many supernatural beings in Olmec art. This sharp cleft is associated with the natural indented head of jaguars.[48]

  • Mask; 10th–sixth century BCE; jadeite; height: 17.1 cm, width: 16.5 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Fine art

Kunz axes [edit]

The Kunz axes (also known every bit "votive axes") are figures that represent werejaguars and were manifestly used for rituals. In most cases, the head is half the total volume of the figure. All Kunz axes accept flat noses and an open oral fissure. The proper noun "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 United mexican states which bear witness Olmec influences in the archaeological tape.

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

Central Mexico [edit]

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

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

Too, in 2007, archaeologists unearthed Zazacatla, an Olmec-influenced city in Morelos. Located about twoscore kilometres (25 mi) south of United mexican states City, Zazacatla covered about 2.5 foursquare kilometres (1 sq mi) between 800 and 500 BCE.[50]

Western United mexican states [edit]

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

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

Southern Mexico and Guatemala [edit]

Olmec influence is too 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 take been avant-garde to account for the occurrence of Olmec influence far outside the heartland, including long-range trade past Olmec merchants, Olmec colonization of other regions, Olmec artisans travelling to other cities, witting imitation of Olmec artistic styles past developing towns – some fifty-fifty suggest the prospect of Olmec military domination or that the Olmec iconography was actually developed outside the heartland.[52]

The more often than not accepted, but by no means unanimous, interpretation is that the Olmec-style artifacts, in all sizes, became associated with elite condition and were adopted by not-Olmec Determinative Period chieftains in an attempt to eternalize their status.[53]

Notable innovations [edit]

In addition to their influence with contemporaneous Mesoamerican cultures, every bit the start culture in Mesoamerica, the Olmecs are credited, or speculatively credited, with many "firsts", including the bloodletting and possibly human sacrifice, writing and epigraphy, and the invention of popcorn, cipher and the Mesoamerican calendar, and the Mesoamerican ballgame, every bit well as mayhap the compass.[54] Some researchers, including artist and art historian Miguel Covarrubias, fifty-fifty postulate that the Olmecs formulated the forerunners of many of the later Mesoamerican deities.[55]

Bloodletting and cede speculation [edit]

Although the archaeological tape does not include explicit representation of Olmec bloodletting,[56] researchers have plant other evidence that the Olmec ritually practiced information technology. For case, numerous natural and ceramic stingray spikes and maguey thorns take been institute at Olmec sites,[57] and certain artifacts have been identified as bloodletters.[58]

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

At El Manatí, disarticulated skulls and femurs, as well as the complete skeletons of newborn or unborn children, have been discovered amidst the other offerings, leading to speculation concerning babe sacrifice. Scholars have not determined how the infants met their deaths.[60] Some authors take associated infant cede with Olmec ritual art showing limp werejaguar babies, most famously in La Venta'southward Altar 5 (on the correct) or Las Limas figure.[61] Whatever definitive respond requires further findings.

Writing [edit]

The Olmec may have been the start civilization in the Western Hemisphere to develop a writing system. Symbols institute in 2002 and 2006 date from 650 BCE[62] and 900 BCE[63] respectively, preceding the oldest Zapotec writing institute so far, which dates from about 500 BCE.[64] [65]

The 2002 find at the San Andrés site shows a bird, speech communication scrolls, and glyphs that are similar to the later Maya script.[66] Known as the Cascajal Block, and dated betwixt 1100 BCE and 900 BCE, the 2006 find from a site virtually San Lorenzo shows a set of 62 symbols, 28 of which are unique, carved on a serpentine block. A large number of prominent archaeologists have hailed this find as the "earliest pre-Columbian writing".[67] Others are skeptical because of the stone'south singularity, the fact that information technology had been removed from any archaeological context, and considering it bears no credible resemblance to whatsoever other Mesoamerican writing system.[68]

In that location are likewise well-documented later hieroglyphs known as the Isthmian script, and while there are some who believe that the Isthmian may stand for a transitional script betwixt an before Olmec writing system and the Maya script, the matter remains unsettled.

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

The back of Stela C from Tres Zapotes
This is the 2d oldest Long Count date yet discovered. The numerals 7.16.6.16.18 translate to 3 September 32 BCE (Julian). The glyphs surrounding the date are 1 of the few surviving examples of Epi-Olmec script.[69]

The Long Count calendar used by many subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations, every bit well as the concept of zero, may have been devised by the Olmecs. Because the six artifacts with the earliest Long Count calendar dates were all discovered outside the firsthand Maya homeland, information technology is probable that this agenda predated the Maya and was possibly the invention of the Olmecs. Indeed, three 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 past the 4th century BCE, several centuries before the earliest known Long Count date artifact.[70]

The Long Count calendar required the use of nada as a place-holder within its vigesimal (base-twenty) positional numeral system. A shell glyph –MAYA-g-num-0-inc-v1.svg – was used as a zero symbol for these Long Count dates, the 2nd oldest of which, on Stela C at Tres Zapotes, has a appointment of 32 BCE. This is ane of the earliest uses of the nothing concept in history.[71]

Mesoamerican abortion [edit]

The Olmec are strong candidates for originating the Mesoamerican ballgame so prevalent among later on cultures of the region and used for recreational and religious purposes.[72] A dozen rubber assurance dating to 1600 BCE or earlier have been found in El Manatí, a bog 10 km (six mi) east of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan.[73] These balls predate the earliest ballcourt nevertheless discovered at Paso de la Amada, c. 1400 BCE, although there is no certainty that they were used in the ballgame.[74]

Ethnicity and linguistic communication [edit]

While the actual ethno-linguistic affiliation of the Olmec remains unknown, various hypotheses accept been put forwards. 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 language into many other Mesoamerican languages.[76] Campbell and Kaufman proposed that the presence of these core loanwords indicated that the Olmec – by and large regarded as the start "highly civilized" Mesoamerican society – spoke a language ancestral to Mixe–Zoquean. The spread of this vocabulary particular to their civilization accompanied the diffusion of other Olmec cultural and artistic traits that appears in the archaeological tape of other Mesoamerican societies.

Mixe–Zoque specialist Søren Wichmann starting time critiqued this theory on the footing that almost of the Mixe–Zoquean loans seemed to originate but from the Zoquean branch of the family. This implied the loanword manual occurred in the menstruation after the ii branches of the language family dissever, placing the fourth dimension of the borrowings outside of the Olmec menses.[77] Notwithstanding, new evidence has pushed back the proposed engagement for the carve up of Mixean and Zoquean languages to a menses 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 to the lowest degree 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 assume 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 accept been the about of import religious figures, with their links to the Olmec deities or supernaturals providing legitimacy for their dominion.[80] There is also considerable evidence for shamans in the Olmec archaeological tape, particularly in the and then-called "transformation figures".[81]

Every bit Olmec mythology has left no documents comparable to the Popol Vuh from Maya mythology, any exposition of Olmec mythology must be based on interpretations of surviving awe-inspiring and portable art (such equally 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 organisation [edit]

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

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

This evidence of geographic and demographic centralization leads archaeologists to suggest that Olmec order itself was hierarchical, full-bodied first at San Lorenzo and so at La Venta, with an elite that was able to apply their control over materials such equally water and monumental rock to exert command and legitimize their regime.[85]

All the same, Olmec lodge is idea to lack many of the institutions of later civilizations, such every bit a standing army or priestly caste.[86] And in that location is no evidence that San Lorenzo or La Venta controlled, fifty-fifty during their heyday, all of the Olmec heartland.[87] There is some doubt, for case, that La Venta controlled even Arroyo Sonso, only some 35 km (22 mi) abroad.[88] Studies of the Sierra de los Tuxtlas settlements, some 60 km (35 mi) away, bespeak that this expanse was composed of more or less egalitarian communities outside the control of lowland centers.[89]

Trade [edit]

The wide improvidence of Olmec artifacts and "Olmecoid" iconography throughout much of Mesoamerica indicates the being of extensive long-distance merchandise networks. Exotic, prestigious and high-value materials such equally greenstone and marine trounce were moved in meaning quantities across large distances. Some of the reasons for merchandise revolve around the lack of obsidian in the heartland. The Olmec used obsidian in many tools considering worked edges were very sharp and durable. Most of the obsidian found has been traced back to Guatemala showing the all-encompassing trade.[xc] While the Olmec were not the showtime in Mesoamerica to organize long-distance exchanges of appurtenances, the Olmec period saw a meaning expansion in interregional trade routes, more than variety in cloth appurtenances exchanged and a greater diversity in the sources from which the base materials were obtained.

Village life and diet [edit]

Despite their size and deliberate urban design, which was copied past other centers,[91] San Lorenzo and La Venta were largely ceremonial centers, and the bulk of the Olmec lived in villages like to present-twenty-four hours villages and hamlets in Tabasco and Veracruz.[92]

These villages were located on higher basis and consisted of several scattered houses. A modest temple may take been associated with the larger villages. The individual dwellings would consist of a house, an associated lean-to, and one or more storage pits (similar in function 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 available nearby.

Although the river banks were used to plant crops between flooding periods, the Olmecs probably also practiced slash-and-fire agriculture to clear the forests and shrubs, and to provide new fields in one case the old fields were exhausted.[93] Fields were located outside the village, and were used for maize, beans, squash, cassava, and sweet spud. Based on archaeological studies of two villages in the Tuxtlas Mountains, information technology is known that maize cultivation became increasingly important to the Olmec over time, although the nutrition remained fairly diverse.[94]

The fruits and vegetables were supplemented with fish, turtle, snake, and mollusks from the nearby rivers, and crabs and shellfish in the coastal areas. Birds were available as food sources, as were game including peccary, opossum, raccoon, rabbit, and in particular, deer.[95] Despite the broad range of hunting and fishing available, midden surveys in San Lorenzo have found that the domesticated dog was the single most plentiful source of animal poly peptide.[96]

History of archaeological research [edit]

Kunz Axe; thousand-400 BCE; jadeite; tiptop: 31 cm (12 iii⁄sixteen in.), width 16 cm (half dozen

five⁄16 in.), 11 cm (4

five⁄16 in.); American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY, U.s.a.). The jade Kunz Axe, first described by George Kunz in 1890. Although shaped like an axe head, with an edge along the bottom, information technology is unlikely that this artifact was used except in ritual settings. At a height of 28 cm (11 in), it is i of the largest jade objects e'er 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 offset Olmec monument to take been found in situ. This monument – the colossal head now labelled Tres Zapotes Monument A – had been discovered in the tardily 1850s by a farm worker clearing forested land on a hacienda in Veracruz. Hearing nigh the curious notice while travelling through the region, Melgar y Serrano start visited the site in 1862 to see for himself and complete the partially exposed sculpture's excavation. His description of the object, published several years later after farther visits to the site, represents the earliest documented report of an artifact of what is at present known as the Olmec culture.[98]

In the latter one-half of the 19th century, Olmec artifacts such as the Kunz Axe (correct) came to lite and were subsequently recognized as belonging to a unique artistic tradition.

Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge fabricated the first detailed descriptions of La Venta and San Martin Pajapan Monument one during their 1925 expedition. Yet, at this time, well-nigh archaeologists assumed the Olmec were contemporaneous with the Maya – even Blom and La Farge were, in their own words, "inclined to ascribe them to the Maya culture".[99]

Matthew Stirling of the Smithsonian Institution conducted the first detailed scientific excavations of Olmec sites in the 1930s and 1940s. Stirling, along 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 conference, where Alfonso Caso declared that the Olmecs were the "mother culture" ("cultura madre") of Mesoamerica.[101]

Shortly after the briefing, radiocarbon dating proved the artifact of the Olmec culture, although the "mother civilization" question generated considerable debate even 60 years later.[102]

DNA [edit]

In the investigations of the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán Archaeological Projection at the sites of San Lorenzo and Loma del Zapote, several homo burials from the Olmec flow were found. The bone consistency in ii of them immune the written report of their mitochondrial DNA to be carried out successfully, every bit part of an investigation that proposes the comparative analysis of the genetic information of the Olmecs with that obtained from subjects from other Mesoamerican societies nether the advice of the specialists Dr. María de Lourdes Muñoz Moreno, Research Professor Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology Heart for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV-IPN), Mexico and Miguel Moreno Galeana, too from CINVESTAV-IPN. This pioneering study of mitochondrial DNA in 2018 was carried out on two 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 nigh arable of the five mitochondrial haplogroups characteristic of the indigenous populations of the Americas: A, B, C, D and Ten.[103] [104]

Etymology [edit]

The name "Olmec" means "rubber people" in Nahuatl, the linguistic communication 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 civilisation died out. The term "Rubber People" refers to the ancient practice, spanning from ancient Olmecs to Aztecs, of extracting latex from Castilla elastica, a rubber tree in the area. The juice of a local vine, Ipomoea alba, was then mixed with this latex to create rubber equally early as 1600 BCE.[105]

Early modern explorers and archaeologists, however, mistakenly applied the name "Olmec" to the rediscovered ruins and artifacts in the heartland decades before it was understood that these were not created past 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]

It is not known what name the aboriginal Olmec used for themselves; some later Mesoamerican accounts seem to refer to the ancient Olmec as "Tamoanchan".[107] A gimmicky term sometimes used for the Olmec civilization is tenocelome, significant "mouth of the jaguar".[108]

Alternative origin speculations [edit]

Partly because the Olmecs developed the offset Mesoamerican civilization, and partly considering picayune is known of them compared to, for instance, the Maya or Aztec, a number of Olmec alternative origin speculations have been put forth. Although several of these speculations, particularly the theory that the Olmecs were of African origin popularized by Ivan Van Sertima's book They Came Before Columbus, accept become well known inside popular culture, they are not considered credible by the vast majority of Mesoamerican researchers and scientists, who discard them equally pop-culture pseudo-science.[109]

Equally of 2018, mitochondrial DNA study carried out on Olmec remains, i 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 most abundant of the five mitochondrial haplogroups feature of the indigenous populations of our continent: A, B, C, D and X."[3]

Gallery [edit]

  • La Venta stele 19 with an early delineation of a feathered snake

  • Olmec Head No.1, 1200–900 BCE

  • Kneeling human figure, 1200–600 BCE

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

  • 3 celts, Olmec ritual objects

  • Olmec were-jaguar

  • Olmec way canteen, reputedly from Las Bocas, 1100–800 BCE

  • Olmec jade mask

  • An Olmec "baby figurine"

Come across 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's First Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson. pp. 9–25. ISBN0-500-28503-9.
  2. ^ Come across Pool (2007) p. ii. 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 fifty-fifty a proper definition of the Olmec "culture". See "Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures" for a deeper treatment of this question.
  3. ^ See, every bit one instance, Diehl, p. xi.
  4. ^ See Diehl, p. 108 for the "ancient America" superlatives. The artist and archeologist Miguel Covarrubias (1957) p. 50 says that Olmec pieces are among the world'southward masterpieces.
  5. ^ Olmecas (due north.d.). Retrieve Quest. Retrieved xx September 2012, from link Archived 24 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Coe (1968) p. 42
  7. ^ Dates from Pool, p. 1. Diehl gives a slightly earlier date of 1500 BCE (p. ix), but the same finish-engagement. Any dates for the kickoff of the Olmec civilisation or culture are problematic equally its rise was a gradual process. Almost Olmec dates are based on radiocarbon dating (run into e.chiliad. Diehl, p. 10), which is only authentic within a given range (due east.g. ±90 years in the example of early El Manatí layers), and much is yet to be learned apropos early Gulf lowland settlements.
  8. ^ Richard A Diehl, 2004, The Olmecs – America's Kickoff Civilization London: Thames & Hudson, pp. 25, 27.
  9. ^ Diehl, 2004: pp. 23–24.
  10. ^ Brook, Roger B.; Linda Black; Larry Due south. Krieger; Phillip C. Naylor; Dahia Ibo Shabaka (1999). Globe History: Patterns of Interaction . Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell. ISBN0-395-87274-X.
  11. ^ Pool, pp. 26–27, provides a groovy overview of this theory, and says: "The generation of food surpluses is necessary for the evolution of social and political hierarchies and at that place is no incertitude that high agricultural productivity, combined with the natural abundance 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 L. (2000). Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Primal 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 decline and abandonment of San Lorenzo. Some researchers believe that the mutilation had ritualistic aspects, particularly 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 one thousand 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 apparent population density ... A low-density Late Preclassic and Early Archetype occupation . . . may have existed; however, information technology remains invisible."
  23. ^ Quote and analysis from Diehl, p. 82, echoed in other works such equally Puddle.
  24. ^ Vanderwarker (2006) pp. 50–51
  25. ^ Coe (2002), p. 88.
  26. ^ a b Coe (2002), p. 62.
  27. ^ Coe (2002), p. 88 and others.
  28. ^ Pool, p. 105.
  29. ^ Pool, p. 106. Diehl, pp. 109–115.
  30. ^ Puddle, pp. 106–108, 176.
  31. ^ Diehl, p. 111.
  32. ^ Pool, p. 118; Diehl, p. 112. Coe (2002), p. 69: "They wear headgear rather similar American football game helmets which probably served as protection in both state of war and in the ceremonial game played...throughout Mesoamerica."
  33. ^ a b c d e Miller, Mary Ellen. "The Art of Mesoamerica From Olmec to Aztec." Thames & Hudson; 4th edition (xx October 2006).
  34. ^ Grove, p. 55.
  35. ^ Pool, p. 107.
  36. ^ In particular, Williams and Heizer (p. 29) calculated the weight of San Lorenzo Jumbo Head 1 at 25.3 short tons, or 23 tonnes. Meet 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, i, 231–252.
  41. ^ Karl Taube, for one, says "In that location but is no textile evidence of whatever Pre-Hispanic contact betwixt the Old Earth and Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century.", p. 17.
    • Davis, N. Voyagers to the New World, University of New Mexico Press, 1979 ISBN 0-8263-0880-5
    • Williams, Southward. Fantastic Archæology, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991 ISBN 0-8122-1312-two
    • Feder, K.L. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries. Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology 3rd ed., Merchandise 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'south Showtime Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 112. ISBN0-500-28503-9.
  46. ^ Milliken, William K. "Pre-Columbian Jade and Hard Stone." The Message of the Cleveland Museum of Art 36, no. 4 (April 1949): 53–55. Accessed 17 March 2018.
  47. ^ "University of Eastward Anglia collections", Artworld
  48. ^ a b c d The British Museum. "Olmec Stone Mask." Smarthistory.com.
  49. ^ Come across Pool, pp. 179–242; Diehl, pp. 126–151.
  50. ^ Stefan Lovgren, Ancient Metropolis Found in Mexico; Shows Olmec Influence. National Geographic News, 26 Jan 2007
  51. ^ For case, Diehl, p. 170 or Puddle, p. 54.
  52. ^ Flannery et al. (2005) hint that Olmec iconography was beginning developed in the Tlatilco culture.
  53. ^ Run into for example Reilly; Stevens (2007); Rose (2007). For a full discussion, see Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures.
  54. ^ Come across Carlson for details of the compass.
  55. ^ Covarrubias, p. 27.
  56. ^ Taube (2004), p. 122.
  57. ^ As one case, see Joyce et al., "Olmec Bloodletting: An Iconographic Report".
  58. ^ See Taube (2004), p. 122.
  59. ^ Pool, p. 139.
  60. ^ Ortiz et al., p. 249.
  61. ^ Puddle, p. 116. Joralemon (1996), p. 218.
  62. ^ See Pohl et al. (2002).
  63. ^ "Writing May Be Oldest in Western Hemisphere". The New York Times. 15 September 2006. Retrieved xxx March 2008. A stone slab bearing iii,000-yr-former writing previously unknown to scholars has been found in the Mexican country of Veracruz, and archaeologists say information technology is an example of the oldest script ever discovered in the Americas.
  64. ^ "'Oldest' New World writing institute". BBC. 14 September 2006. Retrieved 30 March 2008. Ancient civilisations in Mexico adult a writing system as early on as 900 BC, new show suggests.
  65. ^ "Oldest Writing in the New Earth". Scientific discipline . Retrieved thirty March 2008. A block with a hitherto unknown system of writing has been found in the Olmec heartland of Veracruz, United mexican states. Stylistic and other dating of the block places it in the early first millennium before the mutual era, the oldest writing in the New World, with features that firmly assign this pivotal development to the Olmec civilisation 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 zero concept" section cited to Diehl, p. 186.
  71. ^ Haughton, p. 153. The primeval recovered Long Count dated is from Monument one in the Maya site El Baúl, Guatemala, bearing a date of 37 BCE.
  72. ^ Miller and Taube (1993) p. 42. Pool, p. 295.
  73. ^ Ortiz C.
  74. ^ Encounter Filloy Nadal, p. 27, who says "If they [the assurance] were used in the ballgame, we would exist looking at the earliest evidence of this practice".
  75. ^ Coe (1968) p. 121.
  76. ^ Campbell & Kaufman (1976), pp. fourscore–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 printing Sep 2008).
  79. ^ See Pool, p. 6, or Diehl, p. 85.
  80. ^ Diehl, p. 106. Run into likewise J. E. Clark, p. 343, who says "much of the art of La Venta appears to accept been dedicated to rulers who dressed every bit gods, or to the gods themselves".
  81. ^ Diehl, p. 106.
  82. ^ Diehl, pp. 103–104.
  83. ^ See, for example, Cyphers (1996), p. 156.
  84. ^ See Santley, et al., p.four, for a discussion of Mesoamerican centralization and decentralization. See Cyphers (1999) for a discussion of the significant of monument placement.
  85. ^ See Cyphers (1999) for a more detailed discussion.
  86. ^ Serra Puche et al., p. 36, who debate that "While Olmec art sometimes represents leaders, priests, and possibly soldiers, it is hard to imagine that such institutions as the regular army, priest caste, or administrative-political groups were already fully adult past Olmec times." They get on to downplay the possibility of a strong fundamental government.
  87. ^ Puddle, p. 20.
  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 organization at San Lorenzo". Journal of Archaeological Science. forty (half dozen): 2784–2798. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2013.01.033.
  91. ^ "Chiapa de Corzo Archaeological Project". Brigham Young Academy. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
  92. ^ Except where otherwise (human foot)noted, this Village life and diet section is referenced to Diehl (2004), Davies, and Pope et al.
  93. ^ Pohl.
  94. ^ VanDerwarker, p. 195, and Lawler, Archeology (2007), p. 23, quoting VanDerwarker.
  95. ^ VanDerwarker, pp. 141–144.
  96. ^ Davies, p. 39.
  97. ^ Benson (1996) p. 263.
  98. ^ See translated extract from Melgar y Serrano'due south original 1869 report, reprinted in Adams (1991), p. 56. Run across likewise Puddle (2007), pp. 1, 35 and Stirling (1968), p. 8.
  99. ^ Quoted in Coe (1968), p. forty.
  100. ^ Coe (1968), pp. 42–50.
  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 culture, which we meet in ancient levels, is without a doubt female parent 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) [ane]
  104. ^ Villamar Becerril Enrique, "Estudios de ADN y el origen de los olmecas", Arqueología Mexicana, núm. 150, pp. 40-41.(2019)[two]
  105. ^ Rubber Processing, MIT.
  106. ^ Diehl, p. 14.
  107. ^ Coe (2002) refers to an sometime Nahuatl poem cited by Miguel Leon-Portilla, which itself refers to a state called "Tamoanchan":

    in a sure era
    which no one can reckon
    which no one can remember
    [where] there was a government for a long fourth dimension".

    Coe interprets Tamoanchan as a Mayan language word meaning 'Land of Pelting or Mist' (p. 61).
  108. ^ The term "tenocelome" is used as early equally 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 colossal heads
  • "Stone Etchings Stand for 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 World, Science, Vol 313, 15 September 2006, pp. 1610–1614.
  • BBC sound file. Discussion of Olmec culture (fifteen mins) A History of the World in 100 Objects
  • Smithsonian Olmec Legacy

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

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