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Olmecs
The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in part from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe–Zoque cultures. The Olmecs flourished during Mesoamerica's formative period, dating roughly from as early as 1500 BCE to about 400 BCE. Pre-Olmec cultures had flourished since about 2500 BCE, but by 1600–1500 BCE, early Olmec culture had emerged, centered on the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán site near the coast in southeast Veracruz. They were the first Mesoamerican civilization, and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed. 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 fami ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olmec Influences On Mesoamerican Cultures
The causes and degree of Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures has been a subject of debate over many decades. Although the Olmecs are considered to be perhaps the earliest Mesoamerican civilization, there are questions concerning how and how much the Olmecs influenced cultures outside the Olmec heartland. This debate is succinctly, if simplistically, framed by the title of a 2005 ''The New York Times'' article: “Mother Culture, or Only a Sister?”. Olmec heartland Nearly all researchers agree on a number of specific issues concerning the Olmec and the Olmec Heartland: *The forebears of the Olmecs were indigenous to the Olmec heartland, and developed their civilization independent of other civilizations. * The Olmec civilization arose in the Olmec heartland with the flowering of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán in the centuries before 1200 BCE. Beyond the heartland While some of the hallmarks of Olmec culture, such as colossal heads or other sculptures, earthen platforms, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olmec Colossal Heads
The Olmec colossal heads are stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders. They range in height from . The heads date from at least 900 BC and are a distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica.Diehl 2004, p. 111. All portray mature individuals with fleshy cheeks, flat noses, and slightly-crossed eyes; their physical characteristics correspond to a type that is still common among the inhabitants of Tabasco and Veracruz. The backs of the monuments often are flat. The boulders were brought from the Sierra de Los Tuxtlas mountains of Veracruz. Given that the extremely large slabs of stone used in their production were transported over large distances (over ), requiring a great deal of human effort and resources, it is thought that the monuments represent portraits of powerful individual Olmec rulers. Each of the known examples has a distinctive headdress. The heads were variously arranged in lines or groups at major Olmec centres, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesoamerican Chronology
Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BCE – 250 CE), the Classic (250–900 CE), and the Postclassic (); as well as the post European contact Colonial Period (1521–1821), and Postcolonial, or the period after independence from Spain (1821–present). The periodisation of Mesoamerica by researchers is based on archaeological, ethnohistorical, and modern cultural anthropology research dating to the early twentieth century. Archaeologists, ethnohistorians, historians, and cultural anthropologists continue to work to develop cultural histories of the region. Overview Paleo-Indian period 10,000–3500 BCE The Paleo-Indian (less frequently, ''Lithic'') period or era is that which spans from the first signs of human presence in the region, to the establishment of agricult ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Venta
La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta", which is in nearby Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco. Overview The Olmec were one of the first civilizations to develop in the Americas. Chronologically, the history of the Olmecs can be divided into the Early Formative (1800-900 BCE), Middle Formative (900-400 BCE) and Late Formative (400 BCE-200AD). The Olmecs are known as the "mother culture" of Mesoamerica, meaning that the Olmec civilization was the first culture that spread and influenced Mesoamerica. The spread of Olmec culture eventually led to cultural features found throughout all Mesoamerican societies. Rising from the sedentary agriculturalists of the Gulf Lowlands as early as 1600 BCE in the Early Formative period, the Olmecs held sway in the Olmec heartland, an area on the southern Gulf of Mexico ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laguna De Los Cerros
Laguna de los Cerros is a little-excavated Olmec and Classical era archaeological site, located in the vicinity of Corral Nuevo, within the municipality of Acayucan, in the Mexican state of Veracruz, in the southern foothills of the Tuxtla Mountains, some south of the Laguna Catemaco. With Tres Zapotes, San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, and La Venta, Laguna de los Cerros is considered one of the four major Olmec centers. Laguna de los Cerros ("lake of the hills") was so named because of the nearly 100 mounds dotting the landscape. The basic architectural pattern consists of long parallel mounds flanking large rectangular plazas. Conical mounds mark the plaza ends. Larger mounds, formerly raised residential platforms, are associated with the thinner parallel mounds. It has been confirmed that the site was not occupied during the postclassical period. Most of the mounds date from the Classical era, roughly 250 CE through 900 CE. This region, and the early Olmec people, presumably ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Veracruz
Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in eastern Mexico and is bordered by seven states, which are Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo, Puebla, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Tabasco. Veracruz is divided into 212 municipalities, and its capital city is Xalapa-Enríquez. Veracruz has a significant share of the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico on the east of the state. The state is noted for its mixed ethnic and indigenous populations. Its cuisine reflects the many cultural influences that have come through the state because of the importance of the port of Veracruz. In addition to the capital city, the state's largest cities include Veracruz, Coatzacoalcos, Córdoba, Minatitlán, Poza Rica, Boca Del Río and Oriz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Within this region pre-Columbian societies flourished for more than 3,000 years before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Mesoamerica was the site of two of the most profound historical transformations in world history: primary urban generation, and the formation of New World cultures out of the long encounters among indigenous, European, African and Asian cultures. In the 16th century, Eurasian diseases such as smallpox and measles, which were endemic among the colonists but new to North America, caused the deaths of upwards of 90% of the indigenous people, resulting in great losses to their societies and cultures. Mesoamerica is one of the five areas in the world where ancient civilization arose independently (see cradle of civ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mexico
Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico covers ,Mexico '' The World Factbook''. . making it the world's 13th-largest country by area; with approximately 12 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán
San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán or San Lorenzo is the collective name for three related archaeological sites—San Lorenzo, Tenochtitlán and Potrero Nuevo—located in the southeast portion of the Mexican state of Veracruz. Along with La Venta and Tres Zapotes, it was one of the three major cities of the Olmec, and the major center of Olmec culture from 1200 BCE to 900 BCE. San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán is best known today for the colossal stone heads unearthed there, the greatest of which weigh or more and are high.Diehl, p. 41. The site should not be confused with Tenochtitlan, the Aztec site in Mexico City. Administrative names were translated into Aztec/Nahuatl and spread alongside Catholic names during the European conquest, replacing any original locality names, the knowledge of which has often been lost. Description The earliest evidence for Olmec culture is found at nearby El Manatí, a sacrificial bog with artifacts dating to 1600 BCE or earlier. Sedentary agriculturalists h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mokaya
Mokaya were pre-Olmec cultures of the Soconusco region in Mexico and parts of the Pacific coast of western Guatemala, an archaeological culture that developed a number of Mesoamerica’s earliest-known sedentary settlements. The Soconusco region is generally divided by archaeologists into three adjacent zones along the coast—the Lower Río Naranjo region (along the Pacific coast of western Guatemala), Acapetahua, and Mazatán (both on the Pacific coast of modern-day Chiapas, Mexico). These three zones are about 50 km apart along the coast, but they are connected by a natural inland waterway, which could have permitted easy communication in prehistoric times. The term ''Mokaya'' was coined by archaeologists to mean "corn people" in an early form of the Mixe–Zoquean language, which the Mokaya supposedly spoke. Chronology The Mokaya are likely contemporaneous to the La Venta Olmecs. The Olmecs were the first in Mesoamerica to have used cacao, the plant from w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epi-Olmec Culture
The Epi-Olmec culture was a cultural area in the central region of the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz. Concentrated in the Papaloapan River basin, a culture that existed during the Late Formative period, from roughly 300 BCE to roughly 250 CE. Epi-Olmec was a successor culture to the Olmec, hence the prefix "epi-" or "post-". Although Epi-Olmec did not attain the far-reaching achievements of that earlier culture, it did realize, with its sophisticated calendrics and writing system, a level of cultural complexity unknown to the Olmecs. Tres Zapotes and eventually Cerro de las Mesas were the largest Epi-Olmec centers though neither would reach the size and importance of the great Olmec cities before them nor El Tajín after them. Other Epi-Olmec sites of note include El Mesón, Lerdo de Tejada, La Mojarra, Bezuapan, and Chuniapan de Abajo. Cultural context The rise of the Epi-Olmec culture on the western edge of the Olmec heartland coincides with the depopulation of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miguel Covarrubias
Miguel Covarrubias, also known as José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud (22 November 1904 — 4 February 1957) was a Mexican painter, caricaturist, illustrator, ethnologist and art historian. Along with his American colleague Matthew W. Stirling, he was the co-discoverer of the Olmec civilization. Early life José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud was born 22 November 1904 in Mexico City. After graduating from the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria at the age of 14, he started producing caricatures and illustrations for texts and training materials published by the Mexican Ministry of Public Education. He also worked for the Ministry of Communications. In 1923, at the age of 19, he moved to New York City armed with a grant from the Mexican government, tremendous talent, but very little English. In her book ''Covarrubias'', author Adriana Williams writes that Mexican poet José Juan Tablada and New York Times critic/photographer Carl Van Vechten introduced him to New York's literary/cultural ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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