Olmec Civilization {Believed to be Native Americans}

By

Dr. S.N. Suresh

Olmec

The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian civilization living in the tropical

lowlands of south-central Mexico, in what are roughly the modern-day states of

Veracruz and Tabasco.

The Olmec flourished during Mesoamerica's Formative period, dating roughly from

1400 BCE to about 400 BCE. They were the first Mesoamerican civilization and laid

many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed.[1] Among other "firsts",

there is evidence that the Olmec practiced ritual bloodletting and played the

Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican

societies.

The most familiar aspect of the Olmecs is their artwork, particularly the aptly-

named colossal heads.[2] In fact, the Olmec civilization was first defined through

artifacts purchased on the pre-Columbian art market in the late 19th and early 20th

centuries. Olmec artworks are considered among ancient America's most striking

and beautiful, and among the world's masterpieces.[3]

Overview

The Olmec heartland where the Olmecs reigned from 1400 - 400 BCE.

The "Olmec heartland" is an archaeological term used to describe an area in the

Gulf lowlands that is generally considered the birthplace of the Olmec culture. This

area is characterized by swampy lowlands punctuated by low hills, ridges, and

volcanoes. The Tuxtlas Mountains rise sharply in the north, along the Gulf of

Mexico's Bay of Campeche. Here the Olmecs 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 would emerge and reign

from c.1400–400 BCE.[4]

Origins

What we today call Olmec first appears within the city of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán,

where distinctive Olmec features appear around 1400 BCE. The rise of civilization

here was assisted by the local ecology of well-watered alluvial soil, as well as by the

transportation network that the Coatzacoalcos River basin provided. 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 turn triggered

the rise of an elite class.[5] It was this elite class that provided the social basis for the

production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmec

culture.[6] Many of these luxury artifacts, such as jade, obsidian and magnetite,

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, for

example, is found in the Motagua River valley in eastern Guatemala,[7] and Olmec

obsidian has been traced to sources in the Guatemala highlands, such as El Chayal

and San Martín Jilotepeque, or in Puebla,[8] distances ranging from 200 to 400 km

away (120 - 250 miles away) respectively.[9]

La Venta

The first Olmec center, San Lorenzo, was all but abandoned around 900 BCE at

about the same time that La Venta rose to prominence.[10] A wholesale destruction

of many San Lorenzo monuments also occurred circa 950 BCE, which may point to

an internal uprising or, less likely, an invasion.[11] The latest thinking, however, is

that environmental changes may have been responsible for this shift in Olmec

centers, with certain important rivers changing course.[12]

In any case, following the decline of San Lorenzo, La Venta became the most

prominent Olmec center, lasting from 900 BCE until its abandonment around 400

BCE.[13] La Venta sustained the Olmec cultural traditions, but 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 34 meters above

the naturally flat landscape.[14] Buried deep within La Venta, lay opulent, labor-

intensive "Offerings": 1000 tons of smooth serpentine blocks, large mosaic

pavements, and at least 48 separate deposits of polished jade celts, pottery, figurines,

and hematite mirrors.[15]

Decline

It is not known with any clarity what caused the eventual extinction of the Olmec

culture. It is known that between 400 and 350 BCE, population in the eastern half of

the Olmec heartland dropped precipitously, and the area would remain sparsely

inhabited until the 19th century.[16] This depopulation was likely 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, for hunting and gathering, and for transportation.

Archaeologists propose that these changes were triggered by tectonic upheavals or

subsidence, or the silting up of rivers due to agricultural practices.[17]

One theory for the considerable population drop during the Terminal Formative

period is suggested by Santley and colleagues (Santley et al. 1997) and proposes

shifts in settlement location [relocation] due to volcanism instead of extinction.

Volcanic eruptions during the Early, Late and Terminal Formative periods would

have blanketed the lands and forced the Olmecs to move their settlements[18]

Whatever the cause, within a few hundred years of the abandonment of the last

Olmec cities, successor cultures had become 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 post-Olmec culture,

often labeled Epi-Olmec, has features similar to those found at Izapa, some 330

miles (550 km) to the southeast.[19]

Fish Vessel, 12th–9th century BCE.

Height: 6.5 inches (16.5 cm).

The Olmec culture was first defined as an art style, and this continues to be the

hallmark of the culture.[20] Wrought in a large number of mediums – jade, clay,

basalt, and greenstone among others – much Olmec art, such as the Wrestler, is

surprisingly naturalistic. Other art, however, reveals fantastic anthropomorphic

creatures, often highly stylized, using an iconography reflective of a religious

meaning.[21] Common motifs include downturned mouths and a cleft head, both of

which are seen in representations of were-jaguars.[22]

In addition to human and human-like subjects, Olmec artisans were adept at animal

portrayals, for example, the fish vessel to the right or the bird vessel in the gallery

below.

While Olmec figurines are found abundantly in sites throughout the Formative

Period, it is the stone monuments such as the colossal heads that are the most

recognizable feature of Olmec culture.[23] These monuments can be divided into four

classes:[24]

Colossal heads

Rectangular "altars" (more likely thrones) such as Altar 5 shown below.

Free-standing in-the-round sculpture, such as the twins from El Azuzul or

San Martin Pajapan Monument 1.

Stelae, such as La Venta Monument 19 above. The stelae form was generally

introduced later than the colossal heads, altars, or free-standing sculptures.

Over time stelae moved from simple representation of figures, such as

Monument 19 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 calendar dates.[25]

Colossal heads

The most recognized aspect of the Olmec civilization are the enormous helmeted

heads.[26] 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 now generally accepted that these heads are portraits of rulers,

perhaps dressed as ballplayers.[27] Infused with individuality, no two heads are alike

and the helmet-like headdresses are adorned with distinctive elements, suggesting to

some personal or group symbols.[28]

There have been 17 colossal heads unearthed to date.[29]

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 Cobata 1 Monument 1

The heads range in size from the Rancho La Cobata head, at 3.4 m high, to the pair

at Tres Zapotes, at 1.47 m. It has been calculated that the largest heads weigh

between 25 and 55 short tons (50 t).[30]

The heads were carved from single blocks or boulders of volcanic basalt, found in

the Tuxtlas Mountains. The Tres Zapotes heads, for example, were sculpted from

basalt found at the summit of Cerro el Vigía, at the western end of the Tuxtlas. The

San Lorenzo and La Venta heads, on the other hand, were likely carved from the

basalt of Cerro Cintepec, on the southeastern side,[31] perhaps at the nearby Llano

del Jicaro workshop, and dragged or floated to their final destination dozens of

miles away.[32] It has been estimated that moving a colossal head required the efforts

of 1,500 people for three to four months.[33]

"Olmec-style" face mask in jade

Some of the heads, and many other monuments, have been variously mutilated,

buried and disinterred, reset in new locations and/or reburied. It is known that

some monuments, and at least two heads, were recycled or recarved, but it is not

known whether this was simply due to the scarcity of stone or whether these actions

had ritual or other connotations. It is also suspected that some mutilation had

significance beyond mere destruction, but some scholars still do not rule out internal

conflicts or, less likely, invasion as a factor.[34]

The flat-faced, thick-lipped characteristics of the heads and the woolly texture of

similarly Africanized braiding present on the rear of some heads has caused some

debate due to the apparent resemblance to African facial characteristics. Based on

this comparison, some have insisted that the Olmecs were Africans who had

emigrated to the New World.[35] However, claims of pre-Columbian contacts with

Africa are rejected by the vast majority of archeologists and other Mesoamerican

scholars.[36] 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 note that in addition to the broad noses and

thick lips, the eyes of the heads have the Asian epicanthic fold, and that all these

characteristics can still be found in modern Mesoamerican Indians. To support this,

in the 1940s artist/art historian Miguel Covarrubias published a series of photos of

Olmec artworks and of the faces of modern Mexican Indians with very similar facial

characteristics.[37] In addition, the African origin hypothesis assumes that Olmec

carving was intended to be realistic, an assumption that is hard to justify given the

full corpus of representation in Olmec carving.[38]

Jade face masks

Another type of artifact is much smaller; hardstone carvings in jade of a face in a

mask form. Curators and scholars refer to "Olmec-style" face masks as despite

being Olmec in style, to date no example has been recovered in an archaeologically

controlled Olmec context. However they have been recovered from sites of other

cultures, including one deliberately deposited in the ceremonial precinct of

Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), which would presumably have been about 2,000 years

old when the Aztecs buried it, suggesting these were valued and collected as Roman

antiquities were in Europe.[39]

Beyond the heartland

Main article: Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures

The major Formative Period (Pre-Classic Era) sites in present-day Mexico which

show 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:[40]

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 probable Olmec influence include San Bartolo, Takalik Abaj

and La Democracia in Guatemala and Zazacatla in Morelos. The Juxtlahuaca and

Oxtotitlan cave paintings feature Olmec designs and motifs.[41]

Many theories have been advanced to account for the occurrence of Olmec influence

far outside 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 even suggest the

prospect of Olmec military domination or that the Olmec iconography was actually

developed outside the heartland.[42]

The generally accepted, but by no means unanimous, interpretation is that the

Olmec-style artifacts, in all sizes, became associated with elite status and were

adopted by non-Olmec Formative Period chieftains in an effort to bolster their

status.[43]

Notable innovations

In addition to their influence with contemporaneous Mesoamerican cultures, as the

first civilization in Mesoamerica, the Olmecs are credited, or speculatively credited,

with many "firsts", including the bloodletting and perhaps human sacrifice, writing

and epigraphy, and the invention of zero and the Mesoamerican calendar, and the

Mesoamerican ballgame, as well as perhaps the compass.[44] Some researchers,

including artist and art historian Miguel Covarrubias, even postulate that the

Olmecs formulated the forerunners of many of the later Mesoamerican deities.[45]

Bloodletting and sacrifice speculations

Altar 5 from La Venta. The inert were-jaguar baby held by the central figure is seen

by some as an indication of child sacrifice. In contrast, its sides show bas-reliefs of

humans holding quite lively were-jaguar babies.

Although there is no explicit representation of Olmec bloodletting in the

archaeological record,[46] there is nonetheless a strong case that the Olmecs ritually

practiced it. Numerous natural and ceramic stingray spikes and maguey thorns, for

example, have been found at Olmec sites,[47] and certain artifacts have been

identified as bloodletters (see this Commons photo).[48]

The argument that the Olmecs instituted human sacrifice is significantly more

speculative. No Olmec or Olmec-influenced sacrificial artifacts have yet been

discovered and there is no Olmec or Olmec-influenced artwork that unambiguously

shows sacrificial victims (similar, for example, to the danzante figures of Monte

Albán) or scenes of human sacrifice (such as can be seen in the famous ballcourt

mural from El Tajin).[49]

However, at the El Manatí site, disarticulated skulls and femurs as well as complete

skeletons of newborn or unborn children have been discovered amidst the other

offerings, leading to speculation concerning infant sacrifice. It is not yet known,

though, how the infants met their deaths.[50] Some authors have also associated

infant sacrifice with Olmec ritual art showing limp were-jaguar babies, most

famously in La Venta's Altar 5 (to the left) or Las Limas figure.[51] Any definitive

answer will need to await further findings.

Writing

The Olmec may have been the first civilization in the Western Hemisphere to

develop a writing system. Symbols found in 2002 and 2006 date to 650 BCE[52] and

900 BCE[53] respectively, preceding the oldest Zapotec writing dated to about 500

BCE.[54][55]

The 2002 find at the San Andrés site shows a bird, speech scrolls, and glyphs that

are similar to the later Mayan hieroglyphs.[56] Known as the Cascajal Block, the

2006 find from a site near 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".[57] Others are

skeptical because of the stone's singularity, the fact that it had been removed from

any archaeological context, and because it bears no apparent resemblance to any

other Mesoamerican writing system.[58]

There are also well-documented later hieroglyphs known as "Epi-Olmec," and

while there are some who believe that Epi-Olmec may represent a transitional script

between an earlier Olmec writing system and Mayan writing, the matter remains

unsettled.

Mesoamerican Long Count calendar and invention of the zero concept

The back of Stela C from Tres Zapotes

This is the second oldest Long Count date yet discovered. The numerals 7.16.6.16.18

translate to September 3, 32 BCE (Julian). The glyphs surrounding the date are one

of the few surviving examples of Epi-Olmec script.[59]

The Long Count calendar used by many subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations, as

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

immediate Maya homeland, it is likely that this calendar 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 by the 4th century BCE, several centuries

before the earliest known Long Count date artifact.[60]

The Long Count calendar required the use of zero as a place-holder within its

vigesimal (base-20) positional numeral system. A shell glyph — — was used as a

zero 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 earliest uses of the zero

concept in history.[61]

Mesoamerican ballgame

The Olmec, whose name means "rubber people" in the Nahuatl language of the

Aztecs, [62] are strong candidates for originating the Mesoamerican ballgame so

prevalent among later cultures of the region and used for recreational and religious

purposes.[63] A dozen rubber balls dating to 1600 BCE or earlier have been found in

El Manatí, an Olmec sacrificial bog 10 kilometres east of San Lorenzo

Tenochtitlan.[64] These balls predate the earliest ballcourt yet discovered at Paso de

la Amada, circa 1400 BCE, although there is no certainty that they were used in the

ballgame.[65]

Daily life

Ethnicity and language

While the actual ethno-linguistic affiliation of the Olmec remain unknown, various

hypotheses have been put forward. For example, in 1968 Michael D. Coe speculated

that the Olmec were Mayan predecessors.[66]

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.[67] 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 first critiqued this theory on the basis that

most of the Mixe-Zoquean loans seemed to originate from the Zoquean branch of

the family only. This implied the loanword transmission occurred in the period after

the two branches of the language family split, placing the time of the borrowings

outside of the Olmec period.[68] However new evidence has pushed back the

proposed date for the split of Mixean and Zoquean languages to a period within the

Olmec era.[69] 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.[70]

At least the fact that the Mixe-Zoquean languages still are, and are historically

known to have been, spoken in an area corresponding roughly to the Olmec

heartland, leads most scholars to assume that the Olmec spoke one or more Mixe-

Zoquean languages.[71]

Religion and mythology

Main article: Olmec religion

Las Limas Monument 1, considered an important realisation of Olmec mythology.

The youth holds a were-jaguar infant, while four iconic supernaturals are incised on

the youth's shoulders and knees.

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 rule.[72] There is also considerable evidence for shamans in the Olmec

archaeological record, particularly in the so-called "transformation figures".[73]

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 (such as the Las Limas

figure at right), and comparisons with other Mesoamerican mythologies. Olmec art

shows that such deities as the Feathered Serpent and a rain supernatural were

already in the Mesoamerican pantheon in Olmec times.[74]

Social and political organization

Little is directly known about the societal or political structure of Olmec society.

Although it is assumed by most researchers that the colossal heads and several other

sculptures represent rulers, nothing has been found like the Maya stelae (see

drawing) which name specific rulers and provide the dates of their rule.[75]

Instead, archaeologists relied on the data that they had, such as large- and small-

scale site surveys. These provided evidence of considerable centralization within the

Olmec region, first at San Lorenzo and then 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.[76]

This evidence of geographic and demographic centralization leads archaeologists to

propose that Olmec society itself was hierarchical, concentrated first at San Lorenzo

and then at La Venta, with an elite that was able to use their control over materials

such as water and monumental stone to exert command and legitimize their

regime.[77]

Nonetheless, Olmec society is thought to lack many of the institutions of later

civilizations, such as a standing army or priestly caste.[78] And there is no evidence

that San Lorenzo or La Venta controlled, even during their heyday, all of the Olmec

heartland.[79] There is some doubt, for example, that La Venta controlled even

Arroyo Sonso, only some 35 km away.[80] Studies of the Tuxtla Mountain

settlements, some 60 km away, indicate that this area was composed of more or less

egalitarian communities outside the control of lowland centers.[81]

Trade

The wide diffusion of Olmec artifacts and "Olmecoid" iconography throughout

much of Mesoamerica indicates the existence of extensive long-distance trade

networks. Exotic, prestigious and high-value materials such as greenstone and

marine shell were moved in significant quantities across large distances. While the

Olmec were not the first in Mesoamerica to organise long-distance exchanges of

goods, the Olmec period saw a significant expansion in interregional trade routes,

more variety in material goods exchanged and a greater diversity in the sources

from which the base materials were obtained.[82]

Village life and diet

Despite their size, 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.[83]

These villages were located on higher ground and consisted of several scattered

houses. A modest temple may have 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 likely available nearby.

Although the river banks were used to plant crops between flooding periods, the

Olmecs also likely practiced swidden (or slash-and-burn) agriculture to clear the

forests and shrubs, and to provide new fields once the old fields were exhausted.[84]

Fields were located outside the village, and were used for maize, beans, squash,

manioc, sweet potato, as well as cotton. Based on archaeological studies of two

villages in the Tuxtlas Mountains, it is known that maize cultivation became

increasingly important to the Olmec over time, although the diet remained fairly

diverse.[85]

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.[86] Despite the wide 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 protein.[87]

History of archaeological research

The jade Kunz Axe, first described by George Kunz in 1890. Although shaped like

an axe head, with an edge along the bottom, it is unlikely that this artifact was used

except in ritual settings. At a height of 11 in (28 cm), it is one of the largest jade

objects ever found in Mesoamerica.[88]

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 colossal

head now labelled Tres Zapotes Monument A—had been discovered in the late

1850s by 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 partially exposed sculpture's

excavation. His description of the object, published several years later after further

visits to the site, represents the earliest documented report of an artifact of what is

now known as the Olmec culture.[89]

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 artistic

tradition.

Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge made the first detailed descriptions of La Venta

and San Martin Pajapan Monument 1 during their 1925 expedition. However, at

this time most 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".[90]

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.[91]

In counterpoint to Stirling, Covarrubias, and Alfonso Caso, however, Mayanists

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.[92]

Shortly after the conference, radiocarbon dating proved the antiquity of the Olmec

civilization, although the "mother culture" question generates much debate even 60

years later.[93]

Etymology

The name "Olmec" means "rubber people" in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec,

and was the Aztec name for the people who lived in the Gulf Lowlands in the 15th

and 16th centuries, some 2000 years after the Olmec culture 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 as

early as 1600 BCE.[94]

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 by people the Aztecs knew as the

"Olmec", but rather a culture that was 2000 years older. Despite the mistaken

identity, the name has stuck.[95]

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".[96] A

contemporary term sometimes used to describe the Olmec culture is tenocelome,

meaning "mouth of the jaguar".[97]

Alternative origin speculations

Main article: Olmec alternative origin speculations

See also: Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories

In part because the Olmecs developed the first Mesoamerican civilization and in

part because little is known of the Olmecs (relative, for example, to 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, have become well-known within popular culture, they are not considered

credible by the vast majority of Mesoamerican researchers.[98]

Gallery

"The Wrestler", an

Olmec era statuette,

1200 – 800 BCE.

Olmec mask.

Olmec colossal head

monument

Monument 6, San

Lorenzo

Tenochtitlan

One of the "twins"

from El Azuzul

Bird Vessel, 12th–

9th century BCE

Three celts, Olmec

ritual objects.

Olmec were-

jaguar

Olmec style bottle,

reputedly from Las

Bocas, 1100 - 800 BCE

Olmec jade mask.

Olmec-style painting

from the

Juxtlahuaca cave.