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La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta" , which is in nearby Villahermosa , the capital of Tabasco.
What is today called Olmec first appeared fully within San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, where distinctive Olmec features occurred around 1400 BCE. The rise of civilization was assisted by the local ecology of well-watered alluvial soil, as well as by the transportation network provided by the Coatzacoalcos river basin.
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.
San Lorenzo and the Olmec heartland.. Matthew Stirling was the first to begin excavations on the site after a visit in 1938. [12] Between 1946 and 1970, four archaeological projects were undertaken, including one Yale University study headed by Michael Coe and Richard Diehl conducted between 1966 and 1968, followed by a lull until 1990.
The aspect of Olmec culture perhaps most familiar today is their artwork, particularly the Olmec colossal heads. [165] San Lorenzo was situated in the midst of a large agricultural area. [ 166 ] San Lorenzo seems to have been largely a ceremonial site, a town without city walls, centered in the midst of a widespread medium-to-large agricultural ...
The Olmec heartland.. Tres Zapotes is a Mesoamerican archaeological site located in the south-central Gulf Lowlands of Mexico in the Papaloapan River plain. Tres Zapotes is sometimes referred to as the third major Olmec capital (after San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán and La Venta), but the Olmec phase is only a portion of the site's history, [1] which continued through the Epi-Olmec and Classic ...
"The Olmec Football Player" [30] is a 1980 short story by Katherine MacLean. In it, at least one of the Olmec colossal heads depicts an African-American college student who traveled back in time while wearing his football helmet. In The Mysterious Cities of Gold, the few remaining Olmecs are described as being descendants of Atlanteans.
The culture reached its height about 2600 years ago, with its best-known artistic expression being the colossal stone heads. [5] These ceremonial sites were the most complex of that early time period. For this reason, many anthropologists consider the Olmec civilization to be the mother culture of the many Mesoamerican cultures that followed it.