ScienceWeek

ARCHAEOLOGY: ON CULTURAL PRIMACY

The following points are made by Richard A. Diehl (Science 2005 307:1055):

1) For more than 100 years, archaeologists have debated the impact of long-distance trade and exchange on the emergence of civilization. Nowhere has this issue been more sharply contested than in ancient Mesoamerica, especially with regard to the Olmecs during the Early Formative Period (1500 to 900 BC) at San Lorenzo in southern Mexico's Veracruz state.

2) San Lorenzo, the largest center in Mesoamerica from the Early Formative Period, covered 700 hectares and was home to several thousand residents. Some archaeologists have argued that San Lorenzo had a defining impact on societies in the neighboring Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca states and in central Mexico [1-3]; others contend that each region witnessed the contemporaneous growth of complex societies that interacted with each other and with the Olmecs as equals [4,5]. The terms "mother culture" and "sister cultures" are often applied to the extreme positions of the debate.

3) Blomster et al (2005) have provided powerful support for the mother culture school. They demonstrate that some of the Olmec-style pottery found throughout Mesoamerica was manufactured at San Lorenzo and traded over distances of hundreds of kilometers. San Lorenzo thus dominated in the commercial relationships and attendant spread of Olmec iconography and belief systems.

4) San Lorenzo has been at the center of the Olmec mother culture debate since radiocarbon dates placed it centuries earlier than had been postulated by some archaeologists on the basis of the sophistication of its stone sculptures, especially its famous colossal heads. Recent investigations show that in the Early Formative Period, San Lorenzo covered about 700 hectares, many times the area of any contemporary cities in Mesoamerica. Its known features include exquisitely carved colossal heads, thrones, and other two- and three-dimensional depictions of rulers, mythical and living animals, and deities. The plateau San Lorenzo occupied overlooked the junction of several rivers, thus controlling transportation throughout the entire Coatzacoalcos river basin. Raised causeways led from the rivers across annually flooded ground to the plateau. Terraces holding commoner residences lined the ridge sides; the 100-hectare summit was reserved for elite housing, public architecture, and displays that included sets of stone sculptures. San Lorenzo's merchants imported jadeite, basalt, obsidian, Pacific coast shells, magnetite and other iron ores, and probably also more perishable materials.

References (abridged):

1. M. D. Coe, in Regional Perspectives on the Olmec, R. J. Sharer, D. C. Grove, Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1989), pp. 68-82

2. R. A. Diehl, M. D. Coe, in The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership, J. Guthrie, Ed. (Art Museum, Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ, 1995), pp. 11-25

3. J. E. Clark, M. E. Pye, in Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, J. E. Clark, M. E. Pye, Eds. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2000), pp. 217-251

4. D. C. Grove, in (1), pp. 8-16

5. A. Demarest, in (1), pp. 303-344

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