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The Olmecs were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in part from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe–Zoque cultures.
Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian ; the Archaic, the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BCE – 250 CE), the Classic (250–900 CE), and the Postclassic (900–1521 CE); as well as the post European contact Colonial Period (1521–1821), and Postcolonial, or the period after independence from Spain (1821–present).
Cahal Pech is a Maya site located near the town of San Ignacio in the Cayo District of Belize. The site was a palatial, hilltop home for an elite Maya family, and though the most major construction dates to the Classic period, evidence of continuous habitation has been dated to as far back as 1200 BCE during the Early Middle Formative period, making Cahal Pech one of the oldest recognizably Maya sites in Western Belize.
San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán or San Lorenzo is the collective name for three related archaeological sites—San Lorenzo, Tenochtitlán and Potrero Nuevo—located in the southeast portion of the Mexican state of Veracruz. Along with La Venta and Tres Zapotes, it was one of the three major cities of the Olmec, and the major center of Olmec culture from 1200 BCE to 900 BCE. San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán is best known today for the colossal stone heads unearthed there, the greatest of which weigh 28 metric tons or more and are 3 metres (9.8 ft) high.
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and small parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures.
Chiapa de Corzo is an archaeological site of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica located near the small town of Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas.
The causes and degree of Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures has been a subject of debate over many decades. Although the Olmecs are considered to be perhaps the earliest Mesoamerican civilization, there are questions concerning how and how much the Olmecs influenced cultures outside the Olmec heartland. This debate is succinctly, if simplistically, framed by the title of a 2005 The New York Times article: “Mother Culture, or Only a Sister?”.
San Andrés is an Olmec archaeological site in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Located 5 km northeast of the Olmec ceremonial center of La Venta in the Grijalva river delta section of the Tabasco Coastal Plain, San Andrés is considered one of its elite satellite communities, with evidence of elite residences and other elite activities. Several important archaeological finds have been made at San Andrés, including the oldest evidence of the domesticated sunflower, insight into Olmec feasting rituals, didactic miniatures, and possible evidence of an Olmec writing system.
The Southern Maya Area is a region of Pre-Columbian sites in Mesoamerica. It is long believed important to the rise of Maya civilization, during the period that is known as Preclassic. It lies within a broad arc going southeast from Chiapa de Corzo in Mexico to Copán and Chalchuapa, in Central America.
Villa Mazatán (Spanish pronunciation:[ˈβiʝamasaˈtan] is a municipality in the Mexican state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. It has an area of 386.6 km ² and is located in the southwestern Mexican state.
The Pre-Columbian Belize history is the period from initial indigenous presence, across millennia, to the first contacts with Europeans - the Pre-Columbian or before Columbus period - that occurred on the region of the Yucatán Peninsula that is present day Belize.
Cuello is a Maya archaeological site in northern Belize. The site is that of a farming village with a long occupational history. It was originally dated to 2000 BC, but these dates have now been corrected and updated to around 1200 BC. Its inhabitants lived in pole-and-thatch houses that were built on top of low plaster-coated platforms. The site contains residential groups clustered around central patios. It also features the remains of a steam bath dating to approximately 900 BC, making it the oldest steam bath found to date in the Maya lowlands. Human burials have been associated with the residential structures; the oldest have no surviving burial relics, but from 900 BC onwards, they were accompanied by offerings of ceramic vessels.
Mokaya were pre-Olmec cultures of the Soconusco region in Mexico and parts of the Pacific coast of western Guatemala, an archaeological culture that developed a number of Mesoamerica’s earliest-known sedentary settlements.
Baking Pot is a Maya archaeological site located in the Belize River Valley on the southern bank of the river, northeast of modern-day town of San Ignacio in the Cayo District of Belize; it is 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) downstream from the Barton Ramie and Lower Dover archaeological sites. Baking Pot is associated with an extensive amount of research into Maya settlements, community-based archaeology, and of agricultural production; the site possesses lithic workshops, and possible evidence of cash-cropping cacao as well as a long occupation from the Preclassic through to the Postclassic period.
Pacbitun is a Maya archaeological site located near the town of San Ignacio, Belize, in the Cayo District of west central Belize. The modern Maya name given to the site means “stone set in earth”, likely a reference to multiple fragments of stone monuments. The site, at about 240 m above sea level, is one of the earliest known from the southern Maya Lowlands, and was inhabited for almost 2000 years, from ca. 900 BCE to 900 CE. Strategically, it straddles a territory of rolling, hilly terrain between the Mountain Pine Ridge and the tropical forest covered lowlands of the Upper Belize River Valley.
Jaime José Awe is a Belizean archaeologist who specializes in the ancient Maya, a Professor of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University, and the Director of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project.
Marilyn Masson is a Maya archaeologist whose research has focused on social transformation and political economy of ancient Mesoamerican cultures in Mexico and Belize. She is a professor of Mesoamerican archaeology at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is a co-director of the PEMY project at the site of Mayapan in the Northern Yucutan Peninsula of Mexico.
Robert M. Rosenswig is a Mesoamerican archaeologist born Oct. 30, 1968 in Montreal, Canada. He earned a B.A at McGill University in 1994, an M.A. at the University of British Columbia in 1998 and Ph.D. in 2005 from Yale University. Rosenswig currently conducts research projects Mexico, Belize, and Costa Rica. His research explores the emergence of sociopolitical complexity and the development of agriculture.
The Preclassic or Formative Period of Belizean, Maya, and Mesoamerican history began with the Maya development of ceramics during 2000 BC – 900 BC, and ended with the advent of Mayan monumental inscriptions in 250 AD.
References
- 1 2 3 Prowis, Terry, and David Cheetham. "From House to Holy: Formative Development of Civic Ceremonial Architecture in the Maya Lowlands." Research Reports in Belizian Archaeology 4 (2007): 177-86. Ufdc.ufl.edu. Web. 29 Mar. 2013. http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00011735/00001
- 1 2 Awe, Jaime, Cassandra Bill, Mark Campbell, and David Cheetham. "Early Middle Formative Occupation in the Central Maya Lowlands: Recent Evidence from Cahal Pech, Belize." Papers from the Institute of Archaeology 1 (1990): n. pag. Pia. Web. 29 Mar. 2013. http://www.pia-journal.co.uk/article/view/pia.358
- 1 2 3 4 Cheetham, David. "The Americas' First Colony?" Archaeology Jan.-Feb. 2006: 42-46. Print.
- ↑ "Early Middle Formative Occupation in the Central Maya Lowlands: Recent Evidence from Cahal Pech, Belize". Papers from the Institute of Archaeology. 1. 1990-11-15. doi: 10.5334/pia.358 . ISSN 2041-9015.
- 1 2 3 Cheetham, David. CULTURAL IMPERATIVES IN CLAY: EARLY OLMEC CARVED POTTERY FROM SAN LORENZO AND CANTÓN CORRALITO. Ancient Mesoamerica. 2010. 21, pp 165-185 doi:10.1017/S0956536110000040
- 1 2 Greif, Leslie, prod. "Chasing Mummies." Chasing Mummies. History Channel. New York, New York, 2010. Television.
- 1 2 Prowis, Terry G., W. Jeffrey Hurst, Maria Del Carmen Rodriguez, Ponciano Ortiz, C., Michael Blake, David Cheetham, Michael D. Coe, and John G. Hodgeson. The Origins of Cacao Use in Mesoamerica. Academia.edu. Academia, 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2013. https://www.academia.edu/1808048/Powis_et_al._2008_The_Origins_of_Cacao_Use_in_Mesoamerica
- 1 2 Cheetham, David. INTERREGIONAL INTERACTION, SYMBOL EMULATION, AND THE EMERGENCE OF SOCIO-POLITICAL INEQUALITY IN THE CENTRAL MAY A LOWLANDS. Thesis. University of British Columbia. 1998. Circle.ubc.ca. Web. 29 Mar. 2013. https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/8030