The Olmec heartland. The yellow dots represent ancient habitation sites, while the red dots represent isolated artifact finds unassociated with any ancient town or village.The Wrestler, an Olmec era statuette, 1200 - 800 BCE. Art historian George Kubler finds that "the spiraling motion of the body, the multiplicity of profile, the coherent muscles, and the expressive estraint of the work set it apart as among the great works of sculpture of all ages".[1] Michael Coe finds it "one of the supreme examples of Olmec art".[2]
The Olmec heartland is the southern portion of Mexico's 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 at its deepest. It is today, as it was during the height of the Olmec civilization, a tropical lowland forest environment, crossed by meandering rivers.
Most researchers consider the Olmec heartland to be the home of the Olmec culture which became widespread over Mesoamerica from 1400 BCE until roughly 400 BCE. The area is also referred to as Olman or the Olmec Metropolitan Zone.[3]
The major heartland sites are:
San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán
La Venta
Tres Zapotes
Laguna de los Cerros - the least researched and least important of the major sites.
Smaller sites include:
El Manatí, an Olmec sacrificial bog.
El Azuzul, on the southern edge of the San Lorenzo area.
San Andrés, near La Venta.
Important heartland finds not associated with any archaeological site include:
"The Wrestler", a basalt statue found at Arroyo Sonso (see photo).
Las Limas Monument 1, found by two children looking for somewhere to crack nuts.
San Martín Pajapan Monument 1, found high on the slopes of San Martin Pajapan.
The Olmecheartland is the southern portion of Mexico's Gulf Coast region between the Tuxtla mountains and the Olmec archaeological site of La Venta, extending...
Olmec artworks The Olmecs (/ˈɒlmɛks, ˈoʊl-/) were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco...
archaeological investigations of Olmec culture. Seventeen confirmed examples are known from four sites within the Olmecheartland on the Gulf Coast of Mexico...
there are questions concerning how and how much the Olmecs influenced cultures outside the Olmecheartland. This debate is succinctly, if simplistically, framed...
the Olmecheartland, they bear the hallmarks and motifs of Olmec culture. While the extent of Olmec control over the areas beyond their heartland is not...
one of the five supernaturals shown on Las Limas Monument 1 from the Olmecheartland. Rather than a distinct supernatural in its own right, however, Taube...
Olmec hieroglyphs are a set of glyphs developed within the Olmec culture. The Olmecs were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization, flourishing...
the decline of the Olmec culture is uncertain. Between 400 and 350 BC, the population in the eastern half of the Olmecheartland dropped precipitously...
by the folding of the Olmec culture in the eastern Olmecheartland. However, during the next several hundred years, the Olmec culture at Tres Zapotes...
meaning "man", and jaguar, a large member of the cat family in the Olmecheartland, on analogy with werewolf. The basic werejaguar motif combines a cleft...
the State of Veracruz, Mexico, in the Olmecheartland, the statue is famous for its incised representations of Olmec supernaturals. It is the largest known...
yet seen in Mesoamerica. This block was discovered by locals in the Olmecheartland and was dated by the archaeologists to approximately 900 BCE based...
the Olmecheartland, Olmec influences appear in the architectural record. The crania were from the Pre-Classic period, contemporary with the Olmec. Cerro...
possibly the invention of the Olmecs. Many of the earliest Long Count dates were found within the Olmecheartland, although the Olmec civilization ended by the...
Tuxtla mountains – in other words, the Olmecheartland, soon dominated by the presumably Mixe–Zoque-speaking Olmec civilization of about 1400 to 500 BCE...
was transported by raft through a network of rivers, to sites in the Olmecheartland for use in creating monuments, including colossal heads. Peaks in this...
Classic to Postclassic periods, with butterflies representing flames. The Olmecs of the Preclassic period fashioned concave mirrors that were capable of...
block with a hitherto unknown system of writing has been found in the Olmecheartland of Veracruz, Mexico. Stylistic and other dating of the block places...
The Olmec civilization developed and flourished at such sites as La Venta and San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, eventually succeeded by the Epi-Olmec culture...
as early as 1600 BCE in the Early Formative period, the Olmecs held sway in the Olmecheartland, an area on the southern Gulf of Mexico coastal plain,...
the invention of the Olmec. Indeed, many of the earliest Long Count dates were found within the Olmecheartland. However, the Olmec civilization had come...
999 and he made his promise to return. Coatzacoalcos sits within the Olmecheartland. Excavations in 2008 for a tunnel under the Coatzacoalcos River indicate...
in use at the same time as Olmec sculpture was being produced both at Takalik Abaj and at La Venta in the Olmecheartland of Veracruz in Mexico. Structure...
some kind of connection existed between Teopantecuanitlan and the Olmecheartland of the Gulf Coast. Prior to the discovery of Teopantecuanitlan in the...
village of Lomas de Tacamichapan in the Veracruz lowlands in the ancient Olmecheartland on the southeastern coast of Mexico. The block was found amidst ceramic...
relations. Some Mixtec products are among the luxury objects found in the Olmecheartland. During the Preclassic Mesoamerican period, the prime of Teotihuacán...
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