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and many other Olmec sites were strategically located to control important resources and trade and communication routes. The large numbers and sheer volume of imported objects in many such sites clearly offer evidence of the Olmecs’ ability to command resources from a wide area.
There are still many unanswered questions regarding the Olmecs. For example, was their widespread presence and influence based on political control, economic power, or the spread of an Olmec religion? All three possibilities have been proposed, but as yet there are no clear answers.
The Olmecs were wonderful artists and produced the first great art style of Mesoamerica. Their stone carvings great and small, their beautifully made and decorated ceramics, and their surviving paintings all are indicative of a mature and self-confident civilization. Many of their images are portraits of their gods, and major advances have been made in recent years in “deciphering” the Olmec pantheon. But other pieces are more personal, from the 20-ton portrait heads of their rulers to the smaller jade masks and other objects that have often been found in large numbers in caches.
What can be called classic Olmec civilization declined around 400 b.c., but the Olmec people survived. One of their achievements in later times was the development of a writing system. Traces indicating the first steps toward developing a script can be seen in monuments from La Venta, but evidence indicates that a full-fledged writing system was not used until near the time of Christ. This script, called epi-Olmec, has been brilliantly deciphered by two American scholars, John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman.
See also
References
Coe, Michael D., and Richard A. Diehl. 1980. In the Land of the Olmec. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Although this Acheulean site south of Nairobi, in Kenya, was first discovered by louis leakey and mary leakey, it is most famously associated with the work of glyn isaac, who excavated there in the 1960s and early 1970s. The site originally aroused considerable interest because of the extensive record of hand-axe manufacture noted by Isaac and because he argued that he had identified clear evidence of butchery there. One part of the site also exhibited a large number of gelada baboon remains near a concentration of hand-axes, which gave rise to some speculation about whether these animals had been killed by hominids. Isaac’s original interpretations of Olorgesaillie have been challenged on the basis that the sites are found in sandy stream channels, which at least makes it possible that the accumulations of stones and bones were not the direct result of hominid action.
See also
References
Isaac, Glyn, with Barbara Isaac. 1977. Olorgesailie: Archaeological Studies of a Middle Pleistocene Lake Basin in Kenya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Founded in 1919 by the U.S. Egyptologist James Henry Breasted, with support from John F. Rockefeller, the Oriental Institute was the expression of a strong interest at the University of Chicago in the archaeology, history, and linguistics of the ancient Near East. Rockefeller’s generosity continued into the 1930s when the institute took possession of a purpose-built museum and an office and laboratory complex. But Breasted envisioned a greater role for the institute than simply being a repository of ancient artifacts; he believed it should also physically document the significant part played by Near Eastern civilizations in the evolution of western culture. Since its inception the Oriental Institute has been heavily involved in fieldwork throughout the Near East, and its staff members have been particularly active in the study of the ancient languages of the region, especially Assyrian and sumerian. In this regard, they have created dictionaries and advanced the systematic study
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