In a significant number of pots, the clay matched the chemistry of material found around San Lorenzo. They determined that most of these were not imitations of the Olmec style made by local potters. The researchers compared the composition of the ceramics with local clays. Blomster's team analyzed the chemistry of 725 pieces of pottery decorated with symbols and designs in the Olmec style and collected throughout the region. In a report in the journal Science, he and other researchers described evidence of the widespread export of Olmec ceramics that they said supported "Olmec priority in the creation and spread of the first unified style and iconographic system in Mesoamerica."ĭr. Blomster, an Olmec archaeologist at George Washington University. Last month, the simmering pot of mother-sister controversy was stirred anew by Dr. Were Olmecs the "mother" culture? Or were they one among "sister" cultures whose interactions through the region produced shared attributes of religion, art, political structure and hierarchical society? Some scholars think the Olmec civilization was the first anywhere in America, though doubt has been cast by recent discoveries in Peru.Īrchaeologists have split sharply over how much influence the Olmecs had on contemporary and subsequent Mesoamerican cultures. The Olmecs are widely regarded as creators of the first civilization in Mesoamerica, the area encompassing much of Mexico and Central America, and a cultural wellspring of later societies, notably the Maya. Most impressive were Olmec sculptures: colossal stone heads with thick lips and staring eyes that are assumed to be monuments to revered rulers. They left behind palace remnants, distinctive pottery and art with anthropomorphic jaguar motifs. The Olmecs, mobilized by ambitious rulers and fortified by a pantheon of gods, moved a veritable mountain of earth to create a plateau above the plain, and there planted a city, the ruins of which are known today as San Lorenzo. It was more than 3,000 years ago along the Gulf of Mexico around Veracruz. On a coastal flood plain etched by rivers flowing through swamps and alongside fields of maize and beans, the people archaeologists call the Olmecs lived in a society of emergent complexity.
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