Olmec archaeology

Intervals of 260 days are recorded by architectural orientations at a number of Maya sites, a pattern that may have developed early at sites such as Nakbe. The 260-day calendar, emphasizing sets of 13 and 20 days, dates back to the Middle Preclassic, when early E-Groups in the Maya area were used for solar observations. These observations were probably linked with a maize cycle spanning 260 days. By the end of the Late Preclassic, however, most E-Groups were abandoned or modified for a different function, serving as a stage for rituals performed by rulers at a time when the Long Count calendar was being developed. The changing role of E-Groups relates to the rise of royal rituals associated with the detailed historical records documented in Maya Long Count inscriptions.
En varios sitios en el área maya se registran, a partir de las orientaciones arquitectónicas, intervalos de 260 días. Este patrón pudo haberse desarrollado de forma temprana en sitios como Nakbe, Petén, Guatemala. El calendario de 260 días, que enfatiza los conjuntos de 13 y 20 días, data del preclásico medio, cuando se utilizaron los primeros grupos conmemorativos en el área maya para realizar observaciones solares. Estas observaciones probablemente estuvieron vinculadas con un ciclo del maíz que dura 260 días. Sin embargo, a finales del preclásico tardío, la mayoría de los grupos conmemorativos fueron abandonados o modificados para servir una función diferente. Estos grupos fueron utilizados como escenarios para rituales llevados a cabo por la realeza en el periodo durante el cual se desarrolló el calendario de cuenta larga. El nuevo papel de los grupos conmemorativos se relaciona con el aumento de los rituales reales. Estos mismos son asociados con los detallados registros históricos documentados en inscripciones mayas que usan fechas de cuenta larga.

Mirrors or mirror-like objects/"mirrors" made of stones, minerals, glass and metal were found in various archaeological contexts, generally in burial, offering and cache contexts. These remarkable and somehow enigmatic objects are best known from Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites of Çatal Höyük, Domuz Tepe, Güvercin Kayası and Tepecik in Turkey; several Olmec, Maya, Aztec and Inca sites in Americas, as well as from ancient Egyptian and Indian excavations. According to the realms of archaeological and historical recoveries, the mirror appears throughout the human history from prehistoric times to today and most likely still waters were the first mirror-like functioning natural element until actual mirrors made of solid material like obsidian, and later liquid "mirrors"/reflectors made of mercury were manufactured. Based on iconography informed by textual, historical and ethnographical accounts, solid and liquid mirrors were associated with the soul, supernatural spirits, afterlife, magic, scrying, sorcery, divination, astronomy, the sun, sun gods, fire, light, darkness, authority, hidden truth, cosmetics, beauty, scientific applications, luxury, prestige, self-recognition and self-delusion. However, because mirrors archaeologically have not been studied well, specifically those of Prehistory and Protohistory, both as a material object and non-material abstract remains of past cultures, they are still need to be explored. Therefore, this session aims to investigate prehistoric and protohistoric mirrors from all around the World both as a material object and other aspects beyond materiality; past peoples' perception of mirrors and reflections on shiny objects; personal and societal need for gazing into mirrors from interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives. In addition to technological, typological, functional and experimental aspects, astronomical, symbolic, religious, magical, ritualistic, artistic, neuroscientific, and paleopsychological aspects also will be discussed.

En los últimos años, América habla mucho sobre las primeras civilizaciones en el mundo pero poco habla el mundo sobre la primera civilización en Mesoamérica que surgió en la costa sur del Golfo de México, así que este artículo será dedicado a ella, específicamente, a los olmecas de la primera capital: San Lorenzo, Veracruz. Partimos de la idea de que conocerla y reconocerla es el primer paso para su urgente y necesaria protección como patrimonio universal. Advertir sobre los inigualables componentes culturales que la constituyeron, y que muchos ignoran, será de ayuda para su resguardo y preservación.

Originally the paper was presented at the 6th European Maya Conference "Recapturing Mayan Memories: Historical Representation in Text, Image and Ritual" (2001, Hamburg) and submitted for publication in 2002. Since then the proceedings have been in press. Here I would like to thank Rogelio Valencia Rivera for his suggestion to publish the text: finally, the original manuscript with minor stylistic changes appeared in 2014. A Russian translation of the paper was published in 2006 and provided with an extended English summary (Символы власти в ранней юго-восточной Мезоамерике: текст и иконография на стеле 5 из Абах-Такалика, Гватемала /А.А. Бородатова и В.А. Тишков (ред.), Власть в аборигенной Америке. Проблемы индеанистики. Москва, C.142-158).

Recently, a team of archaeologists discovered the existence of the oldest burial in a pyramid known to date in Mesoamerica. The tomb, referred to as Tomb 1, was discovered in Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico. In here, two skeletons were excavated along with a rich offering of green stone pieces, indicating their elite origin. The funerary ornaments included necklaces, bracelets, belts, and anklets, and some beads were carved in the shape of gourds, monkeys, and alligators. Here we present a full, integrated methodology based on a variety of non-invasive and non-destructive analytical techniques, such as X-ray fluorescence (XRF), Raman, and Fourier Transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. These techniques are used to characterize and identify the minerals which were found in these burials. This information contributes not only to conservation and restoration purposes, but also gives more insights on the green stone (jadeite and other minerals) trading networks between different cultures in Southern Mesoamerica during the Pre-Classic period (ca. 750–700 B.C.).

Hydrographic features dominate the Olmec heartland. Fishing, travel, transport, and trade via watercraft were essential parts of daily life. This chapter synthesizes archaeofaunal, iconographic, and biological data about human–animal relationships during the Formative period in the Gulf Coastal lowlands of Veracruz, Mexico. Aquatic environments were reliable sources of physical sustenance for the Olmec and Epi-Olmec, and fresh-water fish, turtles, and local and migratory water birds made up the daily diet. Animals found in marine environments were elevated to a sacred status and venerated in iconography, and jade and ceramic effigies and pendants became important parts of spiritual sustenance.

BLACK AFRICA’S HISTORY
This book was salvational in many ways at the time of its publication. It asserted the historical participation of Black Africa as far back as the birth of the Egyptian civilization. It insists on the leading role it played in some periods and it tries to find out in what periods there existed contact between Black Africa and the Americas. We cannot of course reproach the author with what he could not know in 1976. He could not know Gobekli Tepe, the surrounding settlements, the Natufian villages, etc., all going back to 12,000 years BC which is more than 6,000 or 7,000 years before the Egyptian civilization and 9,000 before the invention of the first known writing system in the Middle East, the Sumerian writing system too often identified as the Akkadian cuneiform writing system because the scribes were Akkadian speaking a Semitic language though the language was Sumerian, a synthetic-analytical language, probably post-agglutinative. Something like 100,000 years part in linguistic phylogeny.

En el mundo se conocen cinco lugares en donde surgieron civilizaciones que marcaron el rumbo de las sociedades en el planeta: Mesopotamia, Egipto, China, India (Gordon Childe, 1996) y Mesoamérica. Esto produjo que en dichas áreas se generara un amplio desarrollo producto de las relaciones simbióticas que se pudieron establecer en ese momento. Ésta última región llamada por Paul Kirchhoff, un etnohistoriador alemán nacionalizado mexicano, como Mesoamérica (Kirchhoff, 1967), contó con una amplia área geográfica en la que surgieron diversas poblaciones que compartieron algunos rasgos culturales durante un largo período. Nombrados por algunos investigadores como la “Civilización Madre” (Clark, Los Olmecas en Mesoamérica, 1994) de Mesoamérica, aunque este calificativo aún es muy discutido, los Olmecas se desarrollaron en el Preclásico, a lo largo de la Costa del Atlántico del Golfo de México, y el lugar que se conoce como el área metropolitana o también conocida como Área Nuclear Olmeca se encuentra ubicada en la parte del sureste del estado de Veracruz y el oeste de Tabasco y está conformada por lo sitios de San Lorenzo, Tres Zapotes, La Venta, Laguna de los Cerros entre otros (Carpio Rezzio, 2005)

Mormon’s Chronological Summary of the Period from the 19th Regnal Year of the Reign of MosiahI to the Coming of the Limhites and Mormon’s Synopsis of the Book of Mormon Prophetic Calendar
A small scrap of paper entitled “Caractors” (also known as the Anthon Transcript) that contained Reformed Egyptian characters copied from the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated has remained an enigma for more than a hundred years.  Finally, the characters have been successfully translated. In a book that is the first of its kind, Jerry Grover, a professional civil engineer, geologist, and translator, has been able to crack the code of the “reformed Egyptian.” The author’s approach is meticulous and scientific. This book is a landmark event in Book of Mormon studies and is a book that must be read by every serious student of the Book of Mormon and of Mesoamerican studies. The author is dedicating all proceeds from the book to additional scientific studies to cast further light on the ancient setting of the Book of Mormon.

From their beginnings some 4,000 years ago to their decadence around 400 b.c., the Olmec people achieved a high level of sociopolitical complexity and dominated their native geographic territory, the southern Gulf Coast of Mexico. The first Olmec capital of San Lorenzo, Veracruz, was the only site in Mesoamerica that produced imposing monumental stone sculpture and architecture between 1800 and 1000 b.c. These characteristics reflect the capabilities of its centralized political system headed by hereditary rulers with divine legitimation. Key issues regarding the development of San Lorenzo Olmec culture center on subsistence and environment. The present study focuses on a portion of the landscape located immediately north of the first Olmec capital of San Lorenzo, Veracruz, that has been proposed as a key resource area during the development of the first civilization in Mesoamerica. We calculate the surface, volume, and water depth of this area based on archaeological data and a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) derived from an airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) survey. The expected minimum and maximum area, local minimum altitude, and the DTM of 5-m spatial resolution provide a basis for inferences regarding the characteristics of the wetland ecosystem during Olmec times. The goal is to quantify and qualify the potential of this resource zone relying on LiDAR topography. Our models validate the observations in the field and, when combined with algorithms, they confirm the archaeological conclusions. We affirm that the northern plain in Olmec times was deeper than it is today and would have been a source of abundant aquatic resources for the primary subsistence of the early Olmec society.

The Olmec’s were an advanced state and have been called the Cultura Madre of Pre-classic Mesoamerica; what perhaps defines them is the cosmopolitan nature of many of their artifacts. The best known artifacts are the giant stone heads, which phenotypically resemble modern day Africans. What makes the Tres Zapotes, La Venta and other Olmec sites unique is that the artifacts are similar in nature to artifacts and icons of the Mycenaean, the Malinke-Mande/Bambara and the Shang. It seems that rather than barriers, the Pacific and Atlantic have acted as liquid highways since at least the appearance of the Olmec around 15 BCE.

Offering 4 at La Venta consists of one brownstone and 15 greenstone human figurines arranged in front of six jade celts set on end. This unique offering was placed north of the pyramid in the Ceremonial Court of Complex A as part of a ritual activity that dedicated a new building phase in the court around 600 BC. lt was associated with a massive serpentine pavement and a cruciform axe offering. About a century later, Offering 4 was reopened and checked. Offering 4 at La Venta conveys a story in media res. The vertical celts, apparently representing stelae, appear to reference the six stelae, which were positioned on the south base of the pyramid that flanked the stairway. The scene created in Offering 4 commemorated an event performed against the backdrop of the pyramid and the stelae. We explore this inference and possible roles and meanings that these stone stelae once played at La Venta.

En las pared es rocosas de las Grutas de Juxtlahuaca se plasmó un mito sobre una posible deidad olmeca del maíz. El protagonista del mito, de cuya frente brota un ave que da nacimiento a un ser maíz, se dirige al dignatario sentado, fertilizando la tierra, el único humano en la historia. El ser supernatural le esta dando el poder al dignatario de fertilizar la tierra. Una alegoría, probablemente, para legitimar su autori­dad como fundador de reinos, gobernante de hom­bres, padre de reyes.

Archaeological methods extend beyond excavations and their analysis and interpretation. This dissertation uses an artifact-based approach to understand the culture of the Tlatilco community who lived in the Basin of Mexico 3000 years ago. I use the many collections of artifacts found in museums across the United States to better understand Tlatilco and relate my findings to the existing archaeological record where it exists.
Wherever there are written records available from the archaeological field seasons, I have related museum artifact findings to the knowledge gained from these. The ancient site of the Tlatilco was heavily looted prior to systematic archaeological excavation and has therefore, I assert, never received the academic attention it deserves. A chance encounter with Tlatilco artifacts that had been in storage and uncurated in a museum moved me to change the course of my Mesoamerican research and provided the foundation for this dissertation. Building on the objects in that collection and many other collections, I aim to understand the identities of the population of Tlatilco. Dating to the Early Formative period (1400-1100 BCE, calibrated), Tlatilco had extensive contact with its contemporaries, which is evident in its ceramic variability and other ritual traditions known from the burial records. The questions I address revolve around the sociopolitical transformation of the Early Formative period as experienced by Tlatilco as we start to see a rise in the civilizations in Mesoamerica and communities that develop to new levels as the complexity broadened. Through comparative analysis of the mainly ceramic Tlatilco objects including figurines, vessels, masks, roller stamps and seals, as well musical instruments, I have identified local trends as well as unique occurrences. I relate these findings to the social
dynamic of Early Formative Mesoamerica in relation to Tlatilco culture and what can be inferred about their customs and practices. This dissertation also addresses the ongoing debate about incorporation of objects without provenance, including the ethics behind excluding the material, as well as methods available to potentially establish provenance.

Il rinvenimento nella penisola di Nicoya (Costarica) di un pendente in giadeite datato al 500 a.C. e la scoperta di giadeite “olmec blue” nella valle di Motagua hanno rafforzato l’ipotesi che ci siano stati contatti tra gli Olmechi e la Gran Nicoya.
Anche l’analisi iconografica dei pendenti in giadeite e pietra verde prodotti da queste due culture rafforza questa ipotesi.

Comprendre la singularité de la Méso-Amérique par rapport au reste du continent passe par l'intelligence d'un peuple trop longtemps négligé: les Olmèques. Entre 1200 et 500 avant J.-C., ils fondent la première grande civilisation du Mexique, dont celles qui suivront, des Zapotèques aux Aztèques, seront les héritières. Seule une vision globalisante, fondée sur les données archéologiques et les vestiges artistiques, peut nous permettre de reconstituer la symbolique olmèque (la grotte, le jaguar, etc.) dans ses relations avec la religion et l'organisation sociale, les modes de pensée et les rituels. On prend conscience notamment que la «civilisation mère» de la Méso-Amérique, bien avant les Mayas, invente un système d'écriture. Se dessine peu à peu, et pour un peuple connu surtout par sa statuaire, une tradition mythique ancrée sur le cycle du renouveau qui va donner une physionomie si particulière aux cultures mexicaines jusqu'à aujourd'hui.

Le livre de Caterina Magni, plus de vingt ans après celui de Jacques Soustelle, fait état des dernières recherches et apporte une forte contribution à notre connaissance de ce monde englouti.

This book shows the meaning in Sumerian compound words of all of the unknown words and glossed words in the Book of Mormon, as well as looking at all other Book of Mormon names.  Discussion is made of the target source languages of the Book of Mormon translation, and an analysis of interpreted names and their significance on determining the language of the plate stack.

A partir de los años 20’s del siglo pasado, el término olmeca comenzó a escucharse en los pasillos de museos de arte y antropología, así como en artículos semi-especializados de revistas por todo el mundo.
Sin embargo, no fue hasta 1942 que en Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas se reunió un grupo de investigadores pioneros, quienes definieron por fin a la cultura olmeca como una sociedad que vio su esplendor en los actuales estados mexicanos de Veracruz y Tabasco, durante los siglos anteriores a la era cristiana.
Inmediatamente luego de su categorización, se incorporó al discurso académico y de difusión el calificativo de Cultura Madre de Mesoamérica, por ser la “primera civilización” en presentar atributos que luego serían los característicos de la mencionada macro-área.
Este escrito constituye un análisis del concepto cultura madre, así como de los debates más recientes en torno a él, a partir del método propuesto por Michel Foucault (2005a, 2005b) y Giorgio Agamben (2010).
Los dos autores mencionados instan al análisis del discurso de las categorías de trabajo, dando cuenta de los enunciados, las reglas, las relaciones, ligazones, omisiones, condiciones de emergencia, instancias de delimitación y rejillas de especificación del discurso.
De esta forma, en lugar de confeccionar una recopilación de datos acerca del estado de la cuestión, hemos optado por una estrategia epistemológica diferente, que en lugar de concentrarse en el devenir histórico de los modelos, se enfoca en dar cuenta en cómo estos modelos forman parte de un discurso coherente.
El presente texto parte de la premisa que el debate en torno al Formativo mesoamericano constituye por sí mismo una episteme1, un a priori histórico, el cual es indispensable analizar con el objeto de dar cuenta de sus articulaciones.
Para ello, este escrito se ha estructurado con el eje de realizar un recorrido que permita dar cuenta de las características principales de la episteme “Cultura Madre/Cultura Hermana”, ya que si bien ambas interpretaciones fueron expuestas como teorías encontradas, en nuestra opinión comparten toda su estructura discursiva, lo que las engloba en las mismas reglas, relaciones y objetos.

The discovery in the Nicoya Peninsula (Costa Rica) of a jadeite pendant dated 500 BC and the discovery of "olmec blue" jadeite in the valley of Motagua have reinforced the hypothesis that there were contacts between Olmec and Gran Nicoya.
Even the iconographic analysis of jadeite and green stone pendants manufactured by these two cultures strengthens this hypothesis.

"En busca del alma nacional" era el título que iba a tener una serie de ensayos en los que Alfonso Reyes “procuraría interpretar y extraer la moraleja de nuestra terrible fábula histórica; buscar el pulso de la patria […]; descubrir la misión del hombre mexicano en la tierra, interrogando pertinazmente a todos los fantasmas y las piedras de nuestras tumbas y monumentos”. Si bien Reyes nunca escribió dicha serie, la historia narrada en este libro da cuenta de la persecución de ese anhelo por parte de los arqueólogos mexicanos de las últimas décadas del siglo XIX y las primeras de la siguiente centuria. Cuando la disciplina arqueológica se estaba consolidando, dichos estudiosos mantuvieron la preocupación por indagar en el pasado para encontrar el origen, el pulso de la patria y su mensaje: primero, entre los acordes de la universalidad decimonónica, interpretaron los restos prehispánicos de la Costa del Golfo como evidencia de la raza negra en el continente y del remoto contacto con Europa; luego, a la vuelta del siglo, y en medio del espíritu chauvinista posrevolucionario, encontraron la cultura madre. A lo largo de ese trayecto, los arqueólogos delinearon sus foros académicos, sus instituciones, su profesión, su disciplina y su agenda, pero sobre todo las narrativas para articular la historia prehispánica, el alma nacional.

The universality of the Maltese Cross: The Maltese Cross is found in virtually all corners of the world. It is basically an eight-pointed, equilateral cross with each arm gradually expanding in width at the outer edge. The Arabic numeral 8 turned on its side represents infinity, whereas the octagonal shape was incorporated into Christian baptismal fonts. This cross looks like a grouping of four arrowheads with their apexes converging at a central point. It symbolizes the four cardinal directions or possibly the four points on the horizon corresponding to the sunrises and sunsets of the summer and winter solstices. In this context it represents the sun.