The Olmecs () or Olmec were an early major Mesoamerican civilization, flourishing in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco from roughly 1200 to 400 BC during Mesoamerica's formative period. They are known as one of the cradles of civilization. The Olmecs were initially centered at the site of their development in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, but moved to La Venta in the 10th century BC following the decline of San Lorenzo. By about 400 BC the major centres of the Olmec civilization had been abandoned, and the population of the eastern half of the Olmec heartland dropped precipitously. The settlement density in that area remained much lower than during the height of Olmec dominance, and only intermittent occupation is evident until much later. Although the Olmec cultural style waned, elements of their tradition lived on in successor societies.
Among other "firsts", the Olmec appeared to practice ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies. The aspect of the Olmecs most familiar now is their artwork, particularly their colossal heads.See, as one example, Diehl, p. 11. The Olmec civilization was first defined through artifacts which collectors purchased on the pre-Columbian art market in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Olmec artworks are considered among the most striking of the pre-Columbian Americas.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
Etymology The term Olmecs is derived from the Nahuatl (singular) or (plural). This word is composed of the two words: ōlli , meaning "natural rubber", and the demonymic suffix -mēcatl .Olmecas (n.d.). Think Quest. Retrieved 20 September 2012, from link Coe (1968) p. 42 Thus literally meaning "rubber people" in Nahuatl.
Rubber for the balls used in the ceremonial ballgame was produced by the people in the Gulf Lowlands dating back to as early as 1600 BC.Rubber Processing, MIT. The process involved extracting latex from a rubber tree common in the area, Castilla elastica, and mixing the latex with the juice of a local vine, Ipomoea alba. The Nahuas (including Aztec) called their contemporary neighbors in the Gulf Lowlands "rubber people" but this was documented some 2,000 years after the end of the ancient Olmec culture. Archaeologists in the early 20th century mistakenly applied the name "Olmec" to the rediscovered ruins and artifacts in the heartland decades before it was understood that they were not created by the same "rubber people" that were contemporary with the Aztecs. Despite the mistaken identity, the name has stuck.Diehl, p. 14.
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".Coe (2002) refers to an old Nahuatl poem cited by Miguel Leon-Portilla, which itself refers to a land called "Tamoanchan":in a certain erawhich no one can reckonwhich no one can remember[where] there was a government for a long time". Coe interprets Tamoanchan as a Mayan language word meaning 'Land of Rain or Mist' (p. 61). A contemporary term sometimes used for the Olmec culture is tenocelome, meaning "mouth of the jaguar".The term "tenocelome" is used as early as 1967 by George Kubler in American Anthropologist, v. 69, p. 404.
Overview The Olmec heartland is the area in the Gulf lowlands where it expanded after 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. Here, 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 civilization emerged and reigned from BC.Dates from Pool, p. 1. Diehl gives a slightly earlier date of 1500 BCE (p. 9), but the same end-date. Any dates for the start of the Olmec civilization or culture are problematic as its rise was a gradual process. Most Olmec dates are based on radiocarbon dating (see e.g. Diehl, p. 10), which is only accurate within a given range (e.g. ±90 years in the case of early El Manatí layers), and much is still to be learned concerning early Gulf lowland settlements.
Origins
Pre-Olmec cultures had flourished since about 2500 BC, and it has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in part from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe–Zoque cultures which developed during this time.See Pool (2007) p. 2. Although there is wide agreement that the Olmec culture 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". See "Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures" for a deeper treatment of this question. The beginnings of Olmec civilization have traditionally been placed between 1400 BC and 1200 BC. 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 back to at least 1600–1500 BC.Richard A Diehl, 2004, The Olmecs – America's First Civilization London: Thames & Hudson, pp. 25, 27. It seems that the Olmec had their roots in early farming cultures of Tabasco, which began between 5100 BC and 4600 BC. These shared the same basic food crops and technologies of the later Olmec civilization.Diehl, 2004: pp. 23–24.
What is today called Olmec first appeared fully within San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, where distinctive Olmec features occurred around 1400 BC. The rise of civilization was assisted by the local ecology of well-watered alluvial soil, as well as by the transportation network provided by the Coatzacoalcos river basin. This environment may be compared to that of other ancient centers of civilization such as the Nile, Indus, Yellow River and Mesopotamia. This highly productive environment encouraged a densely concentrated population, which in turn triggered the rise of an elite class. The elite class created the demand for the production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmec culture.Pool, pp. 26–27, provides a great overview of this theory, and says: "The generation of food surpluses is necessary for the development of social and political hierarchies and there is no doubt that high agricultural productivity, combined with the natural abundance of aquatic foods in the Gulf lowlands supported their growth." Many of these luxury artifacts were made from materials such as jade, obsidian, and magnetite, which came from distant locations and suggest that early Olmec elites had access to an extensive trading network in Mesoamerica. The source of the most valued jade was the Motagua River valley in eastern Guatemala,Pool, p. 151. and Olmec obsidian has been traced to sources in the Guatemala highlands, such as El Chayal and San Martín Jilotepeque, or in Puebla,Diehl, p. 132, or Pool, p. 150. distances ranging from away, respectively.Pool, p. 103.
The state of Guerrero, and in particular its early Mezcala culture, seem to have played an important role in the early history of Olmec culture. Olmec-style artifacts tend to appear earlier in some parts of Guerrero than in the Veracruz-Tabasco area. In particular, the relevant objects from the Amuco-Abelino site in Guerrero reveal dates as early as 1530 BC.
La Venta
The first Olmec center, San Lorenzo, was all but abandoned around 900 BC at about the same time that La Venta rose to prominence.Diehl, p. 9. Widespread destruction of many San Lorenzo monuments also occurred around the 950s BC, which may indicate an internal uprising or, less likely, an invasion.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. The latest thinking, however, is that environmental changes may have been responsible for this shift in Olmec centers, with certain important rivers changing course.Pool, p. 135. Diehl, pp. 58–59, 82.
Following the decline of San Lorenzo, La Venta became the most prominent Olmec center, lasting from 900 BC until its abandonment around 400 BC.Diehl, p. 9. Pool gives dates 1000 BCE – 400 BCE for La Venta. 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, after 2500 years of erosion, it rises above the naturally flat landscape.Pool, p. 157. Buried deep within La Venta lay opulent, labor-intensive "offerings" – 1000 tons of smooth serpentine blocks, large mosaic pavements, and at least 48 separate votive offerings of polished jade celts, pottery, figurines, and hematite mirrors.Pool, p. 161–162.
Decline Scholars have yet to determine the cause of the eventual extinction of the Olmec culture. Between 400 and 350 BC, the population in the eastern half of the Olmec heartland dropped precipitously, and the area was sparsely inhabited until the 19th century.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 Classic occupation ... may have existed; however, it remains invisible." According to archaeologists, this depopulation was probably the result of "very serious environmental changes that rendered the region unsuited for large 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 have been triggered by tectonic upheavals or subsidence, or the siltation of rivers due to agricultural practices.Quote and analysis from Diehl, p. 82, echoed in other works such as Pool.
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, Late and Terminal Formative periods would have blanketed the lands and forced the Olmec to move their settlements.Vanderwarker (2006) pp. 50–51
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 past 400 BC, but without the hallmarks of the Olmec culture. This post-Olmec culture, often labeled the Epi-Olmec, has features similar to those found at Izapa, some to the southeast.Coe (2002), p. 88.
Artifacts
The Olmec culture was first defined as an art style, and this continues to be the hallmark of the culture.Coe (2002), p. 62. Wrought in a large number of media – jade, clay, basalt, and greenstone among others – much Olmec art, such as The Wrestler, is naturalistic. Other art expresses fantastic anthropomorphic creatures, often highly stylized, using an iconography reflective of a religious meaning.Coe (2002), p. 88 and others. Common motifs include downturned mouths and a cleft head, both of which are seen in representations of werejaguars. In addition to making human and human-like subjects, Olmec artisans were adept 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 culture.Pool, p. 105. These monuments can be divided into four classes:Pool, p. 106. Diehl, pp. 109–115.