Olmec
Civilization
Essential Question
• What factors led to the rise
and fall of the Olmec
civilization?
Students Will Know
• The Olmec created the Americas’ first
civilization, which influenced later civilizations.
• The Olmec were a thriving people who directed a
large trade network throughout Mesoamerica.
• The ceremonial centers, ritual games, and art
styles of the Olmec can be seen in later cultures
of this region. Later Mesoamerican societies
copied the Olmec pattern of urban design. They
left behind the notions of an elite ruling class.
• For reasons not fully understood, the Olmec
civilization collapsed around 400 BC.
Mesoamerica
• The people who inhabited Central America formed a number
of advanced civilizations between 1500 B.C. and A.D. 1200.
• As one civilization faded in the region, another developed to
take its place.
• Later civilizations borrowed many aspects of culture from
earlier civilizations, as well as creating their own unique
traditions.
Mesoamerica
Historians call these
civilizations the
Mesoamerican
cultures.
The word ‘meso’
means ‘middle’.
These peoples all
lived in middle
America.
Rise of the Olmecs
• The earliest civilization in North or South America was the
Olmec, who formed their state about 1200 BC.
• This is about the time of the Mycenaean kingdoms in Greece,
or the Third Intermediate Period in Egypt, or the Assyrians in
West Asia.
• The Olmec lived between North America and South America,
in Central America (what is now the southern part of Mexico).
Olmec Territory
•
Rise
of
the
Olmec
This was good land for farming, with a big river
bringing plenty of water
• Farming led to a food surplus which led to the
development of villages
• As they got more crowded, they formed into
villages, and then into towns, and then into cities,
and soon some men emerged as their leaders, and
they had formed a state.
• The earliest Olmec city was at San Lorenzo
Tenochtitlan, near the Gulf Coast, in the foothills of
the Tuxtla Mountains. It was built around 1150 BC.
Olmec Architecture
• The Olmec rulers got their people to build groups of big stone
temples at Tenochtitlan and in several other places nearby.
• These temples were used to worship the Olmec gods, but
they were also used (like Sumerian ziggurats) to store food
and generally as government buildings.
• Very recent discoveries show that the Olmec used writing to
record their thoughts on slabs of stone (like our gravestones).
Olmec Architecture
Olmec Art
• The Olmecs built huge religious stone carvings of their gods
and rulers.
• Some of these carvings were more than nine feet tall, and
weighed more than 40 tons.
• These massive figures were transported miles across the
terrain without the use of wheels, or the aid of animals.
Olmec
Art
Olmec Life
• The Olmec villages were
organized, with a market
square in the center,
where trade and business
could take place.
• They worshiped a variety
of gods and deities. Their
chief god was believed
to be a being with a
human body, and a
jaguar face.
• They enjoyed a ball
game played on a court
with a rubber ball
Olmec Life
• Olmec society seems to have had a large class of farmers and
a small elite.
• This elite held military, political, and religious power.
• Priests and high officials lived in the centers of cities.
• The common people lived in nearby farming villages
Olmec Trade
• The Olmec traded with other people
all over South America.
• Olmec pottery is found all over
Central America and Mexico, and
pottery from other people who lived
nearby is also found in Olmec cities.
• Probably they also traded tar, or
bitumen - sticky black oily stuff like
asphalt that you can use to patch
boats and seal up roofs.
• Some of the trade was probably on
boats that travelled up and down the
rivers, and some of it was overland,
carried by traders walking from city to
city.
Olmec Farming
• The Olmecs were expert farmers, and practiced a type
of farming known as slash-and-burn farming.
• They would cut the trees of a forest down, and wait a
period of several months as the trees dried out.
• They would then light the trees on fire, burning them
all into ashes.
• These ashes acted as a fertilizer, making the soil more
fertile.
• These farmers then farmed the land a few years until it
was no longer fertile, at which point they moved on to
the next forest.
Decline of the Olmecs
• Around 900 BC, after three hundred years, the
Olmec abandoned their main city at
Tenochtitlan and moved their government to
another city, which is now called La Venta.
• Possibly this was because of changes in the
weather at this time, or it may have been
because the river changed its course and the
people moved to be near the new riverbed.
• Or, some people think it could have been because
of a civil war or invasions.
Fall of the Olmecs
• The Olmec state continued to rule Central America for
another five hundred years after this move
• By 400 BC the Olmec seem to have lost control of this area.
• We don't know how this happened, or why.
• As they lost control, new leaders like the Maya gradually
took over.