Shared Art Styles and Long
Distance Contact in Early
MesoAmerica
Richard G. Lesure
By: Julie Clark
• There is a new theoretical interest in
agents imbedded in structures that is
prompting archaeologists to rethink the
first 1,200 years of settles life in
mesoamerica
– Particular concerns includes relationships that
link communities together across large
distances
– Mesoamerican art style referred to as “Olmec”
What is the nature of these artistic
connections?
• One answer:
– People living in one part of Mesoamerica
(specifically what now comprises the modern
states of Vera Cruz, Tobasco and Mexico)
created the Olmec style and that from there it
spread to other areas
– People living in this area became known as
“The Olmecs” which lead to a confusing dual
usage of this term
The Olmec Style
• From 1200 to 400 B.C. Olmec
iconography was widely but unevenly
distributed across Meso America
• Some places it is very pure, in other is it
mixed with other localized themes and
styles.
• Diverse artistic media including stone
sculptures portable stone objects, molded
ceramic artifacts and pottery vessels
Four Points Concerning Olmec
Style
• Comprises a cluster of readily identifiable
motifs and themes
• There is a limited range of themes
suggests a coherent subject matter
• Three distinct subjects
– Creature with the face of a human baby,
supernaturally transformed
– Reptilian creature
Four Points Continued
– Human form with supernatural and animal
modifications to the face
– Finally, all lines of evidence point to Olmec art
as being an indigenous creation of the Native
Americans of Mesoamerica without any Old
World regions such as Africa or China
Chronology- 5 Successive Periods
• Archaic Period (8000-1600BC)- Hunter
Gatherer lifstyle
• Initial Early Formative Period (1600-1200
BC)- Time of settled villages, known for
the first appearance of pottery.
• Late Early Formative (1200-900BC)Marked by striking variety in Olmec
iconography
• Middle Formative (900-400BC) marked by
pottery designs becoming more abstract,
straying from Olmec style
• Late Formative (400BC-AD100) In this
period Mesoamerican art styles had
changed so much that “Olmec” ceaces to
be a helpful term.
Social Context of Exotic Goods and
Olmec Iconography
• This is related to the perpetuation of inequalities
and the elite.
• High status paraphernalia, items of economic
value, costume components, and special ritual
objects used in ceremonies.
• At Formative Mesoamerican sites,
archaeologists have found things imported from
great distances such as iron ore for mirrors and
jade worked into jewelry
• Kent Flannery argues that these objects
were status paraphernalia essential to the
legitimation of Formative elites.
• Sources of such objects were so rare and
scattered across Mesoamerica, the rise of
elites would have created incentives to
trade across long distances
• Flannery suggests that it is because of such far
flung contacts motivated by the exchange of
luxury items that Olmec iconography was spread
across this region.
• It may be possible to consider movements of
people through skeletal remains, but thus far
most studies focus on the movements of objects
that can be traced to their source.
– For ex.) seashells appearing in highland sites must
have been carried there and modern species
distribution can assess whether they derive from the
Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific.