Cerro de las Mesas, meaning "hill of the altars" in Spanish, is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

in the

Mexican state A Mexican State (), officially the Free and Sovereign State (), is a constituent federative entity of Mexico according to the Constitution of Mexico. Currently there are 31 states, each with its own constitution, government, state governor, a ...

Veracruz Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entit ...

, in the Mixtequilla area of the

Papaloapan River The Papaloapan River () is one of the main rivers of the Political divisions of Mexico, Mexican state of Veracruz (state), Veracruz. Its name comes from the Nahuatl ''papaloapan'' meaning "river of the Butterfly, butterflies". In 1518 Juan de Grij ...

basin. It was a prominent regional center from 600 BCE to 900 CE, and a regional capital from 300 CE to 600 CE. Located about due south of

Veracruz City Veracruz (), also known as Heroica Veracruz, is a major port city and municipal seat for the surrounding municipalities of Mexico, municipality of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico and the most populous city in the Mexico, Mexican States of Mexico, ...

, Cerro de las Mesas is on the west edge of what had been the

Olmec heartland The Olmec heartland is the southern portion of Mexico's Gulf Coast of Mexico, Gulf Coast region between the Tuxtla mountains and the Olmec archaeological site of La Venta, extending roughly 80 km (50 mi) inland from the Gulf of Mexico coastline ...

. Rising to prominence after the decline of the

Olmec The Olmecs () or Olmec were an early known major Mesoamerican civilization, flourishing in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco from roughly 1200 to 400 Before the Common Era, BCE during Mesoamerica's Mesoamerican chronolog ...

civilization's culture, some researchers consider Cerro de las Mesas, along with similar sites like La Mojarra and

Tres Zapotes Tres Zapotes is a Mesoamerican archaeological site located in the south-central Gulf Lowlands of Mexico in the Papaloapan River plain. Tres Zapotes is sometimes referred to as the third major Olmec capital (after San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán and La ...

, to be a center of

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 ...

, a successor culture to the Olmecs, and one that itself gave way to Classic Veracruz culture in the 3rd century CE. The site contains a man-made lagoon as well as hundreds of artificial mounds, usually in groups, often clustered with a long and a conical mound. These mound groups were likely built during the epi-Olmec period, 400 BCE to 300 CE.Pool, p. 270. It was also during this period that the influence of

Teotihuacan Teotihuacan (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'', ; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...

appears in the

archaeological record The archaeological record is the body of physical (not written) evidence about the past. It is one of the core concepts in archaeology, the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record. Archaeological t ...

. Sometime later, during the Classic period, a cache of some 800 jade items, some dating from Olmec civilization hundreds of years earlier, were buried at the base of the large mound of the central group. Cerro de las Mesas is home to many

stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

— artistic stone slabs — several of which contain portrait carvings. Four of these stele — numbers 5, 6, 8, and 15 — contain what are likely to be pieces of Epi-Olmec or Isthmian script.Justeson and Kaufman, p. 2.

References

*Coe, Michael; Snow, Dean; Benson, Elizabeth; (1986) ''Atlas of Ancient America''; Facts on File, New York. *Diehl, Richard A. (2004) ''The Olmecs: America's First Civilization'', Thames & Hudson, London. *Justeson, John S., and Kaufman, Terrence (2001
''Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing and Texts''
*Pool, Christopher (2007) ''Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica'', Cambridge University Press, . *Stark, Barbara L., (2001), "Cerro de las Mesas (Veracruz, Mexico)", in Evans, Susan, ed., ''Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America'', Taylor & Francis, London. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cerro De Las Mesas Epi-Olmec sites Former populated places in Mexico Archaeological sites in Veracruz Classic Veracruz sites