Etymology of the name "Olmec"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 [5]. 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".
History
Early historyOlmec 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 centers 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. Many of these luxury artifacts, for example jade and magnetite, must have come from distant locations and suggests that early Olmec elites had access to an extensive trading network in Mesoamerica.
La VentaThe first Olmec center, San Lorenzo, was all but abandoned around 900 BC at about the same time that La Venta rose to prominence. Environmental changes may have been responsible for this move, with certain important rivers changing course. A wholesale destruction of many San Lorenzo monuments also occurred around this time, circa 950 BC, which may point to an internal uprising or, less likely, an invasion.[6]
In any case, La Venta was the most prominent Olmec center from 900 BC until its abandonment around 400 BC. During this period, the Great Pyramid and various ceremonial complexes were created at La Venta, and the baffling Massive Offerings and mosaics were buried.[7] Around 400 BCE, La Venta also came to an end, although the importance of the ceremonial complexes apparently outlasted the Olmec state or culture.
DeclineIt is not known with any clarity what happened to the Olmec culture. The Tres Zapotes site continued to be occupied well past 400 BC, but without the hallmarks of the Olmec culture. Some researchers have labelled this period the "Epi-Olmec" culture. This post-Olmec culture has features similar to those found at Izapa, some distance to the southeast.
Within a few hundred years of the abandonment of the last Olmec cities, successor cultures had become firmly established, most notably the Maya to the east and the Zapotec to the southwest.
Beyond the heartland
Olmec-style artifacts, designs, figurines, monuments and motifs have been found in the archaeological records of sites hundreds of miles (or kilometers) outside the Olmec heartland. These sites include:
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, which features Olmec-style monumental art and rock art with Olmec-style figures.
Teopantecuanitlan, in Guerrero, which features Olmec-style monumental art as well as city plans with distinctive Olmec features.
Other sites showing possible Olmec influence include Abaj Takalik in Guatemala, and the Juxtlahuaca and Oxtotitlan cave paintings are attributed by many researchers[8]to the Olmecs.
Many theories have been advanced to account for the occurrence of Olmec influence far outside the heartland. Some such theories include long-range trade by Olmec merchants, Olmec colonization of other regions, Olmec artisans travelling to other cities, conscious imitation of Olmec artistical styles by developing towns -- and some also suggest Olmec military domination outside of their heartland.
According to the school of thought promoted by Christine Niederberger [9] and developed in particular by Caterina Magni [10], the Olmec culture was a multi-ethnic unit and pluri-linguistic culture covering a vast part of the Mesoamerica, in the period from 1200 BC to about 500 BC. Its presence is attested on old levels of occupation on the Coast of the Gulf, in the Valley of Mexico and along the Pacific coast in the States of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas. Beyond the Mexican borders, Olmec artifacts are found south to Costa Rica. Some major centers being San Lorenzo (Veracruz), La Venta (Tabasco), Chalcatzingo (Morelos), Teopantecuanitlán (Guerrero) and Abaj Takalik (or Takalik Abaj) in Guatemala.
This is contrast to the more traditional view that recognizes a distinct Olmec heartland (see map).
Olmec art
"The Grandmother", Monument 5 at La Venta (reproduction)Olmec artforms remain in works of both monumental statuary and small jadework. Much Olmec art is highly stylized and uses an iconography reflective of a religious meaning to 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 as 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 [11].
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,[12] 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 Tuxtlas Mountains. The Tres Zapotes heads were sculpted from basalt found on San Martin Volcano. The lowland heads were possibly carved from the Cerro Cintepec, now known as Cerro San Martin Pajapan. It is possible that the heads were carried on large balsa rafts from the Llano del Jicaro quarry to their final locations, or more likely dragged and rafted down rivers. 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 Count Designations
San Lorenzo 10 Colossal Heads 1 through 10
La Venta 4 Monuments 1 through 4
Tres Zapotes 2 Monuments A & Q
Rancho la Corbata[13] 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"[14].
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." [15]. 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.
"The Grandmother", Monument 5 at La Venta (reproduction)
