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The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian people living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, roughly in what are the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Their immediate cultural influence went much further though, Olmec artwork being found as far afield as El Salvador. The Olmec predominated in their lands from about 1200 BC to about 400 BC and they are, in fact, claimed by many to be the progenitors and mother culture of every primary element common to later Mesoamerican civilizations.
Overview
The Olmec heartland is characterized by swampy lowlands punctuated by low hill ridges and volcanoes. The Tuxtla Mountains rise sharply in the north, along the Bay of Campeche. Here the Olmecs constructed permanent city-temple complexes at several locations, among them San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, La Venta, Tres Zapotes, Laguna de los Cerros, and La Mojarra. They also had great influence beyond the heartland: from Chalcatzingo, far to the west in the highlands of Mexico, to Izapa, on the Pacific coast near what is now Guatemala, Olmec goods have been found throughout Mesoamerica during this period. In this heartland, the first Mesoamerican civilization would emerge and reign from 1200–400 BC.
The Olmec may have been the first Mesoamericans to develop a writing system, but no examples of it have yet been found. At the present time, there is some debate as to whether or not symbols found in 2002 dated to 650 BC are actually a form of Olmec writing preceding the oldest Zapotec writing dated to about 500 BC.* There are other later hieroglyphs known as "Epi-Olmec". "Epi-Olmec" means "post Olmec", and while there are some who believe that Epi-Olmec may represent a transitional script between an earlier, unknown Olmec writing system and Maya writing, the matter is for the time being unsettled.
The Olmec were perhaps the originators of the Mesoamerican ballgame so prevalent among later cultures of the region and used for recreational and religious purposes—certainly they were playing it before anyone else has been documented doing so.
Their religion developed all the important themes (an obsession with mathematics and with calendars, and a spiritual focus on death expressed through human sacrifice) found in successor groups. Finally, their political arrangements of strongly hierarchical city-state kingdoms were repeated by nearly every other Mexican and Central American civilization that followed.
Etymology of the name
The name "Olmec" means "rubber people" in Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica ("Aztec") people. It was the Aztec name for the people who lived in this area at the much later time of Aztec dominance. Ancient Mesoamericans, spanning from ancient Olmecs to Aztecs, extracted latex from Castilla elastica, a type of rubber tree in the area. The juice of a local vine, Ipomoea alba, was then mixed with this latex to create rubber as early as 1600 BC *. The word "Olmec" also refers to the rubber balls used for their ancient ball game. Early modern explorers applied the name "Olmec" to the rediscovered ruins and art from this area before it was understood that these had been already abandoned more than a thousand years before the time of the people the Aztecs knew as the "Olmec". It is not known what name the ancient Olmec used for themselves; some later Mesoamerican accounts seem to refer to the ancient Olmec as "Tamoanchan".
There is a general consensus that the Olmec spoke a language in the Mixe-Zoquean family, although the evidence is limited.Campbell, pp 80-89 The Olmec language remains unknown, with no living speakers.
History
Early history
Olmec culture originated at its base in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, where distinctively Olmec features begin to emerge around 1150 BC. The rise of civilization here was probably assisted by the local ecology of well watered rich alluvial soil, encouraging high maize production. This ecology may be compared to that of other ancient centres of civilization: Mesopotamia and the Nile valley. It is speculated that the dense population concentration at San Lorenzo encouraged the rise of an elite class that eventually ensured Olmec dominance and provided the social basis for the production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmec culture.Evidence of materials in San Lorenzo that must have come from distant locations suggests that early Olmec elites had access to an extensive trading network in Central America. This was probably protected by some sort of military system. Sites such as Teopantecuanitlan show that the Olmecs were also living in Guerrero.
Decline
It is not known with any clarity what happened to this culture. Their main centre, San Lorenzo, was all but abandoned around 900 BC, and La Venta became the main city. Environmental changes may have been responsible for this move, with certain important rivers changing course. However, there is also some evidence suggestive of an invasion and destruction of Olmec artifacts around this time. Around 400 BC, La Venta also came to an end, although the importance of the ceremonial complexes apparently outlasted the Olmec state or culture. Within a few hundred years of the abandonment of their last cities, successor cultures had become firmly established in their former lands—most notably the Maya to the east, the Zapotec to the southwest, and the Teotihuacan culture to the west.Olmec art
Olmec artforms emphasize both monumental statuary and small jade carvings. Much Olmec art is highly stylized and uses an iconography reflective of the religious meaning of the artworks. Some Olmec art, however, is surprisingly naturalistic, displaying an accuracy of depiction of human anatomy perhaps equaled in the Pre-Columbian New World only by the best Maya Classic era art. Common motifs include downturned mouths and slit-like slanting eyes, both of which can be seen in most representations of "were-jaguars". Olmec figurines are also found abundantly in sites throughout the Formative Period.
In addition to human subjects, Olmec artisans were adept at animal portrayals, for example, this ceramic ancient Olmec "Bird Vessel", dating to circa 1000 BC. Ceramics are produced in kilns capable of exceeding approximately 900° C. The only other prehistoric culture known to have achieved such high temperatures is that of Ancient Egypt *, see also faience.
Olmec colossal heads
Perhaps the best-recognized Olmec art are the enormous helmeted heads. As no known pre-Columbian text explains these, these impressive monuments have been the subject of much speculation. Given the individuality of each, these heads seem to be portraits of famous ball players or perhaps kings rigged out in the accoutrements of the game.According to Grove,Grove, p. 55 the unique elements in the headgear can also be recognized in headdresses of human figures on other Gulf Coast monuments, suggesting that these are personal or group symbols.
The heads range in size from the Rancho La Corbata head, at 3.4 m high, to the pair at Tres Zapotes, at 1.47 m. Some sources estimate that the largest weighs as much as 40 tons, although most reports place the larger heads at 20 tons.
The heads were carved from single blocks or boulders of volcanic basalt, quarried in the Tuxtla Mountains. It is likely that the heads were carried on large balsa rafts from the Llano del Jicaro quarry to their final locations. To reach La Venta, roughly 80 km (50 miles) away, the rafts would have had to move out onto choppy waters of the Bay of Campeche.
Some of the heads, and many other monuments, have been variously mutilated, buried and disinterred, reset in new locations and/or reburied. Whether these actions were undertaken as a ritual or as a result of a conflict or conflicts is yet to be decided.
There have been 17 colossal heads unearthed to date.
| Site | Number | Designations |
|---|---|---|
| San Lorenzo | Colossal Heads 1 through 10 | |
| La Venta | 4 | Monuments 1 through 4 |
| Tres Zapotes | 2 | Monuments A & Q |
| Rancho la Corbata | 1 | Monument 1 |
Pottery and trade
In March 2005, a team of archaeologists used NAA (neutron activation analysis) to compare over 1000 ancient Mesoamerican Olmec-style ceramic artifacts with 275 samples of clay so as to "fingerprint" pottery origination. They found that "the Olmec packaged and exported their beliefs throughout the region in the form of specialized ceramic designs and forms, which quickly became hallmarks of elite status in various regions of ancient Mexico"Archaeological Institute of America, March 28, 2005 .In response, in August 2005 another study, this time using petrography, found that the "exchanges of vessels between highland and lowland chiefly centers were reciprocal, or two way." "New analysis of pottery stirs Olmec trade controversy". University of Wisconsin - Madison press release August 1, 2005. Five of the samples dug up in San Lorenzo were "unambiguously" from Oaxaca. According to one of the archaeologists conducting the study, this "contradicts recent claims that the Gulf Coast was the sole source of pottery" in Mesoamerica.
The results of the INAA study were later defended in March 2006 in two articles in Latin American Antiquity. Because the INAA sample is much larger than the petrographic sample (a total of over 1600 analyses of raw materials and clays vs. approximately 20 pottery thin sections in the petrographic study), the authors of the Latin American Antiquity papers argue that the petrographic study cannot possibly overturn the INAA study.
Religion
- See main article: Olmec mythology
Olmec mythology has left no documents comparable to the Popul Vuh from Maya mythology, and therefore any exposition of Olmec mythology must rely on interpretations of surviving monumental and portable art and comparisons with other Mesoamerican mythologies. Olmec art shows that such deities as the Feathered Serpent and the Rain Spirit were already in the Mesoamerican pantheon in Olmec times.
Mathematics
- See also: First use of the number zero
Alternative origin speculations
Some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) have suggested that the Olmecs may be the Jaredites recorded in the Book of Mormon because of alleged similarities in the Olmec archaeological record. However, the book mentions things that are known not to have been part of the Olmec culture, such as iron, silk and elephants. This speculation is not supported by any aspect of conventional Mesoamerican scholarship.
Others have pointed to the full lips and broad noses of Olmec monuments as evidence that Olmec ancestry may trace back to west Africa, but virtually all mainstream Mesoamerican scholars reject this and point out the central role of the "were-jaguar", half man, half cat, in early Mesoamerican religions. Moreover, they point out that not all people with broad noses and full lips are African, and some Native Americans of the region still display these traits today without any ancestral evidence for any of these possible lineages. Full lips and short broad noses are the norm among Mesoamericans and tropical peoples generally. It is also noted that the colossal Olmec monuments show eye folds found in the local Mesoamericans, a trait unknown among the peoples of West Africa.
Some writers have also claimed that the Olmec were related to the Mandé peoples of West Africa even though there is absolutely no DNA evidence for this. Such writers have also claimed that Olmec symbols are a script that encodes a Mande language, even though there is no known Mande script until 1949. N'ko Writing Argument in favor of Mande theoryFurther promotion of the theory The script claimed to be related to Olmec is actually a set of North African petroglyphs which have not yet even been identified as writing at all, nor definitively connected to any African language let alone to the distant and as yet unknown Olmec language and writing. Mainstream scholars remain unconvinced by these speculations. Others are more critical and regard the promotion of such unfounded theories as a form of ethnocentric racism at the expense of indigenous Americans.
By an overwhelming margin the consensus view remains that the Olmec and their achievements are wholly indigenous to the region, founded entirely on a remarkable and ancient agriculture that was indigenous, and that they and neighbouring cultures, with whom they had contact, developed their own characters quite independently of any extra-hemispheric influences.Taube, p. 17. "There simply is no material evidence of any Pre-Hispanic contact between the Old World and Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century."
Footnotes
References
- Mother Culture, or Only a Sister?, The New York Times, March 15, 2005.
- Campbell, L., and T. Kaufman, 1976, "A Linguistic Look at the Olmecs", American Antiquity, 41.
- ''HLA genes in Mexican Mazatecans, the peopling of the Americas and the uniqueness of Amerindians. - Bibliographic entry in PubMed.
- Scientists Find Earliest "New World" Writings in Mexico
- Coe, M.D. Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs. London: Thames and Hudson (2002): pp. 64, 75-76.
- Grove, D. C., "Olmec monuments: Mutilation as a clue to meaning", in The Olmec and their Neighbors: Essays in Memory of Matthew W. Stirling. E. P. Benson, ed.; Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, 1981, pp. 49–68.
- Stoltman, J. B., Marcus, J., Flannery, K. V., Burton, J. H., Moyle, R. G., "Petrographic evidence shows that pottery exchange between the Olmec and their neighbors was two-way", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, August 9, 2005, v. 102, n. 32, pp. 11213-11218 .
- Taube, Karl (2004), "The Origin and Development of Olmec Research", in Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
See also
External links
- Drawings and photographs of the 17 colossal heads
- A list of Olmec and Olmec-era artifacts at the Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana, United States.
Olmec | Ancient peoples | Mesoamerican cultures | Pre-Hispanic cultures of Mexico
Civilització olmeca | Olmékové | Olmeker | Olmeken | Olmeca | Olmekoj | Olmeka | Olmèques | אולמקים | Olmeken | オルメカ | Olmek | Kultura Olmeków | Olmeca | Olmeekit | Olmeker | 奥尔梅克文明
"Olmec"