The Olmec World: A History of Mesoamerica

According to Arnold Toynbee, a civilization arises in response to a challenge. In Central America - the Mesopotamia of the New World - the challenge was the jungle. The Olmecs were the first people to meet this challenge successfully. The coastal plain of Veracruz and Tabasco, along the southern curve of the Gulf of Mexico, is the birthplace of the first great civilization of the western hemisphere. Between the thirteenth and first centuries B.C., the Olmecs built ceremonial centers such as La Venta, with monumental pyramids, a spacious courtyard, a basalt-columned tomb, a offerings of stones, Celts, and jaguar mosaics. At La Venta also are four of the twelve colossal carved Olmec heads that have thus far been discovered. The Olmecs, then, were not only artists but engineers and scientists as well. It is not fully understood how they moved the great stones to the stoneless plain or how they made their jade carvings, which rival the finest of the Orient. They discovered the value of the zero and achieved the most complete system of calculating time conceived in America. Over the centuries the Olmecs penetrated into the Valley of Mexico, southward into Oaxaca and Chiapas and on into the highlands and Pacific coast of Guatemala. Monte Alban in the Valley of Oaxaca shows strong Olmec influence. Thus, this people not only engendered Mesoamerican civilization but also brought forth what might be called the first Mesoamerican empire. The Olmecs appear to have established the pattern which, through the centuries, was to be followed by later expansionist Mesoamerican cultures. The end of the Olmec world was not so much an end as a beginning. It led directly into the Classic world of Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, Tajin, and the Maya, peoples who received the Olmec inheritance and pushed civilization to far higher levels. In an engrossing reconstruction, Ignacio Bernal examines Olmec art, society, and religious beliefs.