The Olmecs

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The Olmecs
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Olmecs and Mayans
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Olmecs

• Earliest known ceremonial centers of the ancient
  Americas appeared near modern day Veracruz around
  1200 B.C.
• Served as the nerve center for the first complex
  society of the Americas, the Olmecs
• Olmec was not what the people called themselves
• It means rubber people and comes from the
  rubber trees that flourish in the region

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Characteristics of Olmec Civilization

• Intensive agricultural techniques
• Area received abundant rainfall so extensive
  irrigation systems were unnecessary
• Still the Olmecs built elaborate drainage systems
  to divert waters that might otherwise have caused
  floods
• Specialization of labor
• Jade craftsmen
• Cities
• Built around ceremonial centers at San Lorenzo,
  La Venta, and Tres Zapotes
• A social hierarchy
• Society was probably authoritarian
• Common subjects provided labor and tribute to the
  elite

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Characteristics of Olmec Civilization

• Organized religion and education
• Ceremonial centers, priests, temples, altars, and
  human sacrifice
• Development of complex forms of economic exchange
• Imported jade and obsidian and exported small
  jade, basalt, and ceramic works of art
• Development of new technologies
• Excellent astronomers and mathematicians who
  developed a calendar
• Advanced development of the arts. (This can
  include writing.)
• Created colossal human heads sculpted from basalt
  rock

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Olmec Head at La Venta
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Decline of the Olmec

• Olmecs systematically destroyed their ceremonial
  centers at both San Lorenzo and La Venta and then
  deserted the sites
• Statues were broken and buried, monuments
  defaced, and capitals burned
• No one knows why, but some speculate reasons
  involving civil conflicts or doubts about the
  effectiveness or legitimacy of the ruling classes
• By about 400 B.C., Olmec society had fallen on
  hard times and other societies soon eclipsed it

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Mayans

• Began to develop around 300 A.D. in what is now
  southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and
  El Salvador
• Known as The People of the Jaguar

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Olmec Influence on the Mayans

• Maize
• Ceremonial centers with temple pyramids
• Calendar based on the Olmec one
• Ball games
• Rituals involving human sacrifice