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Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 19, 1–37 (2000)doi:10.1006/jaar.1999.0359, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

Formative Mexican Chiefdoms and the Myth of the “Mother Culture”

Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus

Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1079

Most scholars agree that the urban states of Classic Mexico developed from Formativechiefdoms which preceded them. They disagree over whether that development (1) took placeover the whole area from the Basin of Mexico to Chiapas, or (2) emanated entirely from oneunique culture on the Gulf Coast. Recently Diehl and Coe (1996) put forth 11 assertions indefense of the second scenario, which assumes an Olmec “Mother Culture.” This paperdisputes those assertions. It suggests that a model for rapid evolution, originally presented bybiologist Sewall Wright, provides a better explanation for the explosive development of For-mative Mexican society. © 2000 Academic Press

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INTRODUCTION

On occasion, archaeologists revive ideasso anachronistic as to have been declareddead. The most recent attempt came whenRichard Diehl and Michael Coe (1996)parted the icy lips of the Olmec “MotherCulture” and gave it mouth-to-mouth re-suscitation.1

The notion that the Olmec of the GulfCoast were the mother of all Mesoameri-can civilizations goes back more than halfa century (Covarrubias 1944), to a timewhen Formative archaeology was in itsinfancy. Scholars of the 1940s saw generalstylistic similarities between the GulfCoast and the Mexican highlands; sinceOlmec centers had stone monuments andthe highlands generally did not, it wasassumed that the Gulf Coast was in theforefront and the highlands were begging

1 While Diehl is given as the co-author of the 1996esuscitation, he and Coe are not always in fullgreement. For example, Diehl believes (as do we)hat the Olmec were a set of chiefdoms; Coe does notCoe and Diehl 1980b:147). Coe believes that thelmec site of San Lorenzo is a gigantic bird effigy;iehl (personal communication, 1990) does not. We

hus feel uncomfortable including Diehl in our re-uttal of what are largely Coe’s views. Our compro-ise is simply to refer to the Diehl and Coe (1996)

aper by its title, “Olmec Archaeology.”

1

to be civilized. Five decades of subsequentexcavation have shown the situation to bemore complex than that, but old ideas diehard.

In “Olmec Archaeology” (hereafter ab-breviated OA), Diehl and Coe (1996:11)propose that there are two contrasting“schools of thought” on the relationshipbetween the Olmec and the rest of Me-soamerica. In the Olmec-centric school theyplace themselves, John Clark, Beatriz de laFuente, Paul Tolstoy, and the late AlfonsoCaso, Ignacio Bernal, Miguel Covarrubias,Matthew Stirling, and George Vaillant.This group, they allege, agrees with themthat the Olmec were different from theircontemporaries in kind rather than de-gree, creating the entire symbolic systemof 1150–500 b.c.2 and becoming theMother Culture of later Mesoamericancivilization. In the primus inter pares schoolthey place William R. Coe, Arthur Demar-est, John Graham, David Grove, NormanHammond, Flannery and Marcus, RobertStuckenrath, Jr., and the late Sir EricThompson. They describe this school asbelieving that the Olmec were “no moreadvanced than any other” Formative cul-

2 In this paper, lowercase “b.c.” is used for uncali-rated radiocarbon years before the Christian era.

0278-4165/00 $35.00Copyright © 2000 by Academic PressAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

2 FLANNERY AND MARCUS

ture and contributed “little if anything tolater [Mesoamerican] civilization.”

Our school would be happy to chal-lenge the Olmec-centrists to a tug-of-war,since half the members of their team aredead. However, their portrayal of our po-sition is not accurate—a familiar problemwhen one is being used as a straw man.We would not describe the Olmec as “nomore advanced” or “contributing little.”Their contribution has simply been exag-gerated by Olmec-centrists, who creditthe Olmec with many things their neigh-bors did earlier or better.

OA presents 11 “traits” which allegedlyshow the Olmecs’ maternal role in Me-soamerica’s genealogy (Diehl and Coe1996:23). We find those traits unconvinc-ing and suggest that there are betterframeworks than the Mother Culturemodel, which we do not find appropriatefor any world region. One alternative is amodel for the conditions leading to rapidevolution, presented by the distinguishedbiologist Sewall Wright (1939). Even be-fore refuting the 11 traits, however, wemust modify the authors’ caricature of ourposition.

PRIMUS INTER PARES: ACLARIFICATION

Any model for the Olmec and theirneighbors must be based on our currentunderstanding of complex societies,which is far greater now than in Vaillant’sor Covarrubias’s day (Anderson 1994;Carneiro 1981, 1991; Drennan and Uribe1987; Earle 1991a, b, 1997; Flannery 1995,1999; Goldman 1970; Johnson 1987; Kirch1984; Kirch and Green 1987; Marcus 1989,1992; Marcus and Flannery 1996; Spencer1993, 1998; H. Wright 1984, 1986).

Among the most interesting societies inthe ethnographic and archaeologicalrecords are chiefdoms—societies based onhereditary differences in rank, in whichthe chief’s authority extends to satellite

communities. Chiefdoms are not a mono-lithic category; they come in many differ-ent types. Some, like those of Panama’sAzuero Peninsula, were sedentary andflamboyant (Lothrop 1937; Linares 1977;Helms 1979). Others, like those of Iran’sZagros Mountains, were pastoral andnon-flamboyant (Barth 1964; Flannery inpress). Within Polynesia alone, Goldman(1970) has classified some chiefdoms as“traditional” (based more on sacred au-thority), others as “open” (based more onsecular power), and still others as “strati-fied” (large, with a combination of sacredauthority and secular power). Nowadaysthe term “paramount” often substitutesfor Goldman’s “stratified.” While rank intraditional chiefdoms usually took theform of a continuum from higher to lowerstatus, a few paramount chiefdoms—likethose in Hawai’i (Kirch 1984: Fig. 85)—achieved stratification by cutting lower-status families out of the genealogy, re-ducing them to a commoner class.

In some parts of the ancient world,chiefdoms persisted for centuries. Re-search in such regions has defined a long-term process called “chiefly cycling” (H.Wright 1984; Anderson 1994). In this pro-cess, paramount chiefdoms rose, peaked,then collapsed amid a regional landscapeof smaller traditional or open chiefdoms.It is increasingly clear that paramountchiefdoms formed by taking over theirweaker neighbors (Carneiro 1981, 1991).Their collapses resulted from such factorsas competition between chiefly families orfactions, endemic raiding, agriculturalfailure, or demographic imbalance, andusually took the form of fragmentationback into the smaller units from whichthey had been created. We view theOlmec as one more set of paramountchiefdoms that rose, peaked, and eventu-ally collapsed in a landscape of traditionaland open chiefdoms.

A rare paramount chiefdom might suc-ceed in subduing and incorporating other

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3MEXICAN CHIEFDOMS AND MOTHER CULTURE

large chiefdoms, creating a polity so greatthat it could no longer be administered asa chiefdom (Spencer 1998). This is howindigenous states formed in Madagascar(Dewar and Wright 1993) and among theZulu, Ashanti, Hunza, and Hawai’ians(Flannery 1999). It is becoming increas-ingly clear that the first states in south-west Iran, Egypt, Peru, Oaxaca, and theMaya region also formed this way (H.Wright 1986; Flannery 1995; Marcus 1992,1993, 1998a; Marcus and Flannery 1996). Itmakes the study of chiefdoms all the moreinteresting to discover that, on at leastsome occasions, they became the “precur-sors” of states (Carneiro 1981; H. Wright1984).

It took more than 1000 years for Mexi-co’s Formative societies to become com-plex enough to serve as precursors forstates. By the middle of the second mil-lennium b.c., agricultural villages werespread over the whole area from the Basinof Mexico to the Pacific Coast of Chiapas.Some, but not all, of these village societieshad been reorganized into states by thebeginning of the Christian era.

We know less about this transitional pe-riod than we should, since some archae-ologists assume that their sites belong tochiefdoms without producing evidence ofthe requisite sociopolitical institutions.Elsewhere we have suggested that asmany as ten lines of evidence may be nec-essary to confirm a chiefdom (Marcus andFlannery 1996:110). At this writing, we areconfident that the Valleys of Mexico,Puebla, Morelos, and Oaxaca, and variousparts of Guerrero, Chiapas, and southernVeracruz-Tabasco had chiefly societies by1150 b.c. We are less confident about areassuch as the Tehuacan Valley and the Can-

da de Cuicatlan, but they show evidencef modest chiefdoms by 600–450 b.c.Spencer 1993).

Most chiefly centers of 1150–450 b.c.ere in frequent contact with each other,

xchanging goods like obsidian, marine

hell, iron ore mirrors, and the like (Pires-erreira 1975). Tlapacoya in the Basin ofexico sent Paloma Negative and Cestohite pottery to San Jose Mogote in the

alley of Oaxaca; Oaxaca sent Leandroray and Delfina Fine Gray pottery tolapacoya and to San Lorenzo, Veracruz

Marcus 1989:192; Flannery and Marcus994:259–263, 286). San Jose Mogote re-eived turtle shell drums and pearlyreshwater mussels from the San Lorenzoegion; it also received Guamuchalrushed pottery from Chiapas (Flannerynd Marcus 1994:286). Magnetite fromaxaca reached San Pablo in Morelos andan Lorenzo in Veracruz (Pires-Ferreira975).There are two reasons why such ex-

hanges of goods should not surprise us.he first is that intersite distances wereot great. Given foot travel estimates of.5 km per h (Morley 1938:234) or 32 kmer day (Hammond 1978), even a trip from

he Basin of Mexico to the Chiapas Coastould take less than a month. The second

eason is that chiefly elites are always ea-er for prestigious gifts from other chieflylites.

THE OLMEC IN WIDER CONTEXT

Let us now look at the Olmec in theontext of chiefdoms worldwide. The apo-ee of this flamboyant society took placeetween 1150 and 300 b.c. on Mexico’sulf Coast (Grove 1997). What we know of

ts demographic history suggests typicalhiefly cycling. San Lorenzo, perhaps thearliest Olmec center, peaked between150 and 900 b.c.; it then suffered a loss ofopulation and many of its stone monu-ents were defaced, most likely by a rival

hiefdom (Coe and Diehl 1980a, b;yphers 1997). San Lorenzo’s populationas partially restored between 600 and

00 b.c., after which it collapsed again anday abandoned for centuries rather thanecoming part of a state.

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La Venta, a second Olmec center some90 km to the northeast, rose to promi-nence between 900 and 600 b.c. (Druckeret al. 1959; Gonzalez Lauck 1996). It is

robably no accident that La Venta’s riseoincided with San Lorenzo’s 900–600 b.c.iatus. Whether La Venta or a thirdhiefly center was responsible for defac-ng San Lorenzo’s monuments, this cyclef synchronized rises and collapses is typ-

cal of chiefdoms competing for labor andesources (H. Wright 1984; Anderson994).Indeed, the Olmec resembled many

ther chiefdoms worldwide. Some of theirhiefly centers covered hundreds of hect-res, like the largest Mississippian centersf North America. The Olmec builtarthen mounds like some Polynesianhiefdoms. They set up huge stone sculp-ures like chiefdoms on Easter Island, andarved wooden statues and jade sumptu-ry goods like the Maori. While they wereot identical to any of those other chief-oms, the difference was more of degree

han kind.Many chiefly centers sprawled over ar-

as larger than that of a typical Bronzege city. This results from the fact that

hiefs cannot control people at a distance,s states can; many chiefs therefore con-entrated thousands of farmers, warriors,nd craftsmen as close to their residencess possible. Conversely, when a chiefdomcycled down,” its loss of populationould be as spectacular as that recordedrom San Lorenzo at 900 b.c. by Symondsnd Lunagomez (1997:135).Even at their peaks, San Lorenzo and La

enta were smaller than Cahokia, a Mis-issippian chiefly center in Illinois. At itspogee in A.D. 1250, Cahokia is estimatedo have covered 13 km2 (Milner 1998:109;

Pauketat 1994). This is six times the cur-rent estimate for La Venta (GonzalezLauck 1996:75) and twice the most hyper-bolic estimate for San Lorenzo (Lunago-

mez 1995). Surveys of the American Bot-tom, the alluvial valley surroundingCahokia, suggest that the site’s immediate“sustaining area” may have covered 3000km2. By A.D. 1400 it had collapsed withoutbecoming part of a state.

Like the Olmec, Cahokia was once con-ceived of as a “mother culture.” Fortyyears ago, when we had much less infor-mation than we do now, the AmericanBottom was considered “something of afont from which all Mississippian [cul-ture] arose, even the source of invadingwaves of population” for other parts ofthe eastern United States (Anderson 1994:144). Over the past four decades, thatmodel of Cahokian mother culture hasbeen replaced by a multiple-center model.The Mississippian is now seen as “emerg-ing” (Smith 1990) simultaneously fromlocal Woodland cultures all over theSoutheast, and “any recourse to popula-tion movement is suspect” (Anderson1994:144).

Even within the 3000 km2 AmericanBottom, Milner (1990:29) would now seeCahokia as primus inter pares, the domi-nant political entity among a number oforganizationally similar (if less complex)semiautonomous chiefdoms which exer-cised considerable control over their ownterritories—something analogous, inother words, to Powhatan’s confederacy of200 villages (Rountree 1989). Anderson(1994:141) points to a significant differencebetween Cahokia and most early states:“the complete absence [at Cahokia] of ev-idence for formal, differentiated adminis-trative structures.”

While it lacked administrative struc-tures, Cahokia did build earthen mounds.One of these, Monks Mound, stands 30 mhigh and covers an area 300 3 212 m(Anderson 1994:138). It is the largest

3 The largest estimates for San Lorenzo would in-lude, within the boundaries of that one site, locali-ies which other reports consider separate sites in theettlement hierarchy below San Lorenzo.


earthen structure in the New World,dwarfing even the largest pyramid at LaVenta (Drucker et al. 1959:11).

Some Polynesian chiefdoms also builtmound groups rivaling La Venta. The Tu’iTonga, or hereditary chief, of Tonga ruledfrom a fortified ceremonial center calledLapaha on the island of Tongatapu(McKern 1929; Kirch 1984:228). Stretchingalong the shore of a lagoon for 1.5 km,Lapaha featured a series of plazas and20–30 earthen mounds, both circular andrectangular. Historically known chiefs ortheir brothers and sisters lie buried underspecific mounds.

Several Polynesian chiefdoms, most no-tably Easter Island, erected monumentalstone statues analogous to the colossalheads of San Lorenzo and La Venta (Fig.1). Based on ethnohistoric records, Bahnand Flenley (1992) suggest that the hugestatues or moai of Easter Island representimportant ancestors. They were set onslopes above villages to stand guard dur-ing the ceremonies of their descendants,but were sometimes toppled by victoriousenemies. Easter Island was an open chief-dom in Goldman’s (1970:21) terms, notnearly as powerful as the paramountchiefdoms of Tonga and Hawai’i. Despitethis, Easter Island carved 900 to 1000 moai(Van Tilburg 1994), roughly 100 times asmany colossal heads as are known fromSan Lorenzo (Diehl and Coe 1996:15).

Many chiefdoms carved jade, anotheractivity for which the Olmec are known.Among the most spectacular were the tikisof jadeite or nephrite carved by the Maori(Mead et al. 1985), a traditional Polynesianchiefdom. Some carvers were renownedthroughout New Zealand, and the bestjades were given names and became heir-looms for the elite.

Maori chiefs also supported carvers ofwooden house posts and statues (e.g.Mead et al. 1985: Pl. 37, 39, 47, 58). Thiscraft is another with which the Olmec arenow credited, based on the discovery of

waterlogged wooden busts in a spring atEl Manatı, Veracruz (Ortız and Rodrıguez1989, 1999). As Fig. 2 should make clear,however, the best Maori carvers took abackseat to no one, including the Olmec.

Maori chiefs’ houses had carved lintels,thresholds, side posts, roof beams, andsupport posts. Each house was considereda work of art and given a name. Similarcraftsmanship was lavished even on stor-age houses, which might be given nameslike Te Oha, “The Abundance.” Maorichiefs also commissioned Meeting Housesfor their followers. The roofs of theseMeeting Houses were supported by hugeupright posts, sometimes carved to re-

FIG. 1. Many chiefdoms erected stone sculpturesof chiefly ancestors. (a) Moai 27 from Easter Island(height 5.45 m). (b) Colossal Head 4 from SanLorenzo (height 1.78 m). Redrawn from Van Tilburg(1994) and de la Fuente (1975).

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semble warriors; the door posts were alsocarved, often depicting legendary ances-tors.

San Lorenzo has produced one featurewhich (although enigmatic) hints that theOlmec may have had comparable publicbuildings, but with roofs supported by ba-salt columns instead of wooden posts. The

FIG. 2. Many chiefdoms were noted for elaboratewood carving. (a) Maori carved post (height 175 cm).(b) Carved bust from El Manatı (height 55 cm).Drawn from photos in Mead et al. (1985) and Ortızand Rodrıguez (1989).

evidence consists of a carved basalt col-umn (now broken in half), its upright baseset in a patch of red clay floor with asso-ciated steps and a stone-lined drain(Cyphers 1997: Fig. 7.15).4

In sum, the Olmec fit comfortablywithin the parameters of chiefdomsworldwide. They built mounds and plazaslike Tongan chiefdoms, carved jades andwooden statues like the Maori, erected co-lossal heads like Easter Island, and con-centrated thousands of farmers, warriors,and artisans in sprawling settlements asthe chiefs of Cahokia did. The Olmec lookimpressive relative to their contemporar-ies, but not in comparison to later societieslike those centered at Teotihuacan andMonte Alban.

THE 11 OLMEC-CENTRIC TRAITSPROPOSED IN OA

In spite of the Olmecs’ resemblance tother chiefdoms, Coe has always imag-

ned them to be a colonizing empire, “Me-oamerica’s first true civilization.” Let usook at the 11 “traits” which he and hiso-author believe support the Olmec-cen-ric view (Diehl and Coe 1996:11).

Trait 1. San Lorenzo and La Venta hadmultitiered, hierarchical settlement sys-ems that integrated towns, smaller vil-ages, tiny hamlets, craft workshops andpecial ritual locales”—systems that “oc-urred nowhere else in Mesoamerica untilenturies later.” (Convinced that “specialitual locales” were unique to the Olmec,he authors of OA use them again asrait 7.)Someone evidently hasn’t been reading

he settlement pattern literature. Every

4 The basalt column is called Monument 57. Un-fortunately, the patch of red clay floor with steps hasbeen nicknamed “El Palacio Rojo,” an easily remem-bered but misleading label since we lack a plan ofthe building, and what we do have looks nothing likea Mesoamerican palace (see Flannery 1998 for exam-ples).

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major chiefly center of the period 1150–450 b.c. whose hinterland has been sys-tematically surveyed had villages andhamlets hierarchically below it. The Basinof Mexico (Sanders, Parsons, and Santley1979; Niederberger 1996: Map 1), the Val-ley of Morelos (Hirth 1980, Grove 1987),the Valley of Oaxaca (Kowalewski et al.1989; Marcus and Flannery 1996), theChiapas coast (Clark and Blake 1994), andnorthern Belize (Hammond 1991) all hadhierarchies of villages and hamlets belowmajor centers. As for “craft workshops,”examples include the Matadamas chertquarries (Whalen 1986) and Fabrica SanJose saltworks (Drennan 1976) in the Val-ley of Oaxaca. “Special ritual locales” arealso widespread; consider the paintedcliffs and caves above the site of Tlapa-coya in the Basin of Mexico which, ori-ented east toward the volcanoes Ixtacci-huatl and Popocatepetl, receive the earlylight of sunrise and “may have constituteda significant component of sacred space”(Niederberger 1996:87). The painted caveof Oxtotitlan in Guerrero (Grove 1970)would be a second example.

Trait 2. Although we “cannot yet deci-her the meanings,” San Lorenzo and Laenta “were laid out as cosmograms.”his is sheer speculation, based on Coe’selief that San Lorenzo was laid out toesemble a “gigantic bird flying east” (Coend Diehl 1980a:387). This notion is re-uted by geological studies which showhat, although modified by architecturalerracing, the overall shape of the Sanorenzo plateau is largely the result ofatural erosion (Cyphers 1997:102–105).While true cosmograms have not been

found, many early Mesoamerican culturesused solar or astral principles in orientingimportant buildings. As early as 1350 b.c.,the occupants of the Valley of Oaxacawere apparently aligning their Men’sHouses to the sun’s path during the equi-nox. This resulted in an orientation 8° N ofeast, or as it is often given, 8° W of north

(Flannery and Marcus 1994:31–33; Marcusand Flannery 1996:87). Complex A at LaVenta had a similar orientation (Druckeret al. 1959), but since the Oaxaca Men’sHouses antedate Complex A by 500 years,one can hardly credit the Olmec withMexico’s first solar or astral alignments.

Trait 3. Although admitting that “welack precise data on the size of Olmecpolities,” the authors of OA argue that theterritories controlled by Olmec centersmay have been “significantly larger thanthose of their contemporaries.” The truthis that we also lack precise data on the sizeof their contemporaries’ polities, makingthe whole topic speculative.

Trait 4. The Olmec, OA asserts, “had ahighly sophisticated symbol system ex-pressed in a coherent art style.” We deferour discussion of this trait to a later sec-tion, where we show that San Lorenzo hadonly a subset of the repertoire of symbolsused throughout early Mexico.

Trait 5. The Olmec invented monumen-tal stone carving, which was “a definingcharacteristic of every Mesoamerican civ-ilization.” We agree that monumentalsculpture was a defining characteristic ofthe Olmec; the question is, how accuratean indicator of sociopolitical complexity isit? We have already shown that EasterIsland, a modest chiefdom by Polynesianstandards, produced 100 times as manycolossal heads as are known from SanLorenzo.

Trait 6. Predictably, the authors of OAuse the colossal heads for a second trait.Both the heads, and the wooden bustsfound in the spring at El Manatı, arethought by them to be “portraits of rul-ers.” Again, this is pure speculation. Likethe statues of Easter Island, the Olmeccolossal heads might represent chiefly an-cestors. As for the busts of El Manatı, theymight be (1) ancestors, like some Maoriwoodcarvings, or (2) surrogate sacrificialvictims tossed into a spring.

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Trait 7. This trait, “special ritual locales,”has already been discussed under Trait 1.

Trait 8. The ballgame, OA claims, findsits “oldest known evidence” in Olmec de-posits; San Lorenzo’s Palangana moundcomplex (600–400 b.c.) “is the first known,purposefully constructed ballcourt.” Thisassertion is contradicted by Hill et al.(1998), who claim to have found a 1400 b.c.ballcourt at Paso de la Amada, Chiapas.The game itself is surely older than theOlmec; we even have one preceramiccamp site with a boulder-lined area thatcould be for ballgames (Marcus and Flan-nery 1996:58–59).

The most convincing evidence for anearly Mexican ballgame comes from rub-ber balls preserved by waterlogging in thespring at El Manatı (Ortız and Rodrıguez1989, 1999). The discovery of these balls,however, is an accident of good preserva-tion. We cannot assume that similar ball-games were unknown in the highlands;after all, there are very early figurines ofballplayers at El Openo, Michoacan (Oliv-eros 1974).

Trait 9. The authors of OA use El Manatıfor a second trait: the first “ritual use ofrubber.” It makes sense that the first ritualuse of rubber might occur on the GulfCoast, where rubber trees are native—justas it makes sense that the first ritual use ofobsidian and magnetite might occur in thehighlands, where those raw materials arenative. The point is, every region hassomething it did “first.”

Trait 10. But wait; El Manatı gets usedor a third trait. It provides the Olmec withhe oldest evidence for “infant sacrifice inater-related rituals.”The truth is that by the time El Manatıas occupied, infant sacrifice had existed

n Mexico for thousands of years. Severalnfants were sacrificed (perhaps even can-ibalized) in Level XIV of Coxcatlan Cave

n the Tehuacan Valley, an occupationating to 5000 b.c. (MacNeish et al. 1972:66–270). The fact that the occupants of

he arid Tehuacan Valley used a dry caveor such sacrifices, while the occupants ofhe humid Gulf Coast used a spring,ardly seems earth-shaking.Trait 11. The Olmec had “extensive

rade networks.” While they admit thatost Formative cultures had extensiveetworks, the authors of OA insist that thelmec “moved a greater quantity andore different kinds of goods” than their

ontemporaries (they then pad the listith “probable exports” for which weave no physical evidence.) The fact is

hat we currently have no objective, quan-ified measure of goods moved by anyormative society, especially in the case oferishables.We cannot resist pointing out the irony

f the OA authors’ position on Trait 11: Allormative cultures had trade, but thelmec had the most trade. Doesn’t thatake the Olmec primus inter pares?

TRAITS CONSPICUOUS BY THEIRABSENCE

As interesting as the 11 traits given inA are the “firsts” the authors do not list

or the Olmec. These include the first usef lime plaster, adobe brick, and stoneasonry, three materials emblematic oflassic Mesoamerican civilization. OA

annot list these as Olmec innovations be-ause their first use occurred in the Mex-can highlands. In the Valley of Oaxaca,or example, lime plaster was used in

en’s Houses as early as 1350 b.c.; adobesere used in public buildings by 1000 b.c.;

nd stone masonry platforms up to 2.5 mn height were in use by 1000 b.c. (Marcusnd Flannery 1996:87, 109–110). By the timeuch construction techniques reached Com-lex A, La Venta (Drucker et al. 1959), theyad been used in the highlands for cen-

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A DETAILED LOOK AT TRAIT 4

We now look at Trait 4, the “highly so-phisticated Olmec symbol system/artstyle.” OA asserts that this style spreadover all of Mesoamerica between 1150 and850 b.c., and its principal componentswere “monumental, three-dimensionalstone sculpture; hollow whiteware figu-rines depicting babies; and CalzadasCarved pottery” (Diehl and Coe 1996:23).The OA authors insist that these elements“are indigenous in San Lorenzo’s InitialOlmec period culture and appear as intru-sive elements at San Jose Mogote in the

FIG. 3. Map of Formative Mexico, showingHachured area, highland province. Shaded area1400–1150 b.c. (Clark 1991: Fig. 8) and remainedcoya; 3, Coapexco; 4, Gualupita and AtlihuayanBocas; 8, Ajalpan and Coxcatlan Cave; 9, TeopanEtlatongo; 12, Cuicatlan; 13, San Jose Mogote anEl Manatı; 17, Las Limas; 18, Mirador-Plumajill

Valley of Oaxaca; Tlatilco, Tlapacoya, andLas Bocas in central Mexico; several sitesin Guerrero; and Abaj Takalik, La Blanca,and the Mazatan region in the Pacificcoastal region of Chiapas and Guatemala”(ibid.). As we shall see, the available datado not support the notion that carved pot-tery and hollow baby dolls are “intrusive”in the highlands of Mexico.

It is now clear that widespread regionalstyles existed in Mexico even before theOlmec rose to prominence. Between 1400and 1150 b.c., as pointed out by Clark(1991: Fig. 8), Mexico was divided into atleast two ceramic style provinces (Fig. 3).

e provinces and places mentioned in the text.land province. The style boundary emerged at

tact through 1150–850 b.c. 1, Tlatilco; 2, Tlapa-, Nexpa and San Pablo; 6, Chalcatzingo; 7, Lasanitlan; 10, Oxtotitlan Cave; 11, Nochixtlan and

ierras Largas; 14, La Venta; 15, San Lorenzo; 16,9, Chiapa de Corzo; 20, Paso de la Amada.

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The Basin of Mexico, Morelos, Puebla, theTehuacan Valley, the Valleys of Oaxaca

nd Nochixtlan, and the Cuicatlan Can-ada all shared red-on-buff bowls, bottles,and jars (Fig. 4). East of Tehuacan andOaxaca, this red-on-buff complex gradu-ally gave way to one linking southern Ve-racruz, Tabasco, and Chiapas. This low-land complex featured tecomates orneckless jars with bichrome slips, fluting,or crosshatching (Fig. 5).

FIG. 4. A complex of red-on-buff vessels charat 1400–1150 b.c. (a) Jar from Burial 1 of Nexpa.(i,j) Jar and bottle from Ajalpan. (d, e) Hemispherbowls from Tlapacoya. (h, k) Hemispherical bNiederberger 1976; Flannery and Marcus 1994;

Despite these regional differences, afew pottery types were present on bothsides of the style boundary. One of thesewas a pure white product called “kaolinware,” believed on the basis of petro-graphic analysis to have been made in twoto three different regions (Fig. 6). Alsofound on both sides of the boundary weretecomates decorated with rocker stampingin zones (Fig. 7). Such vessels make thepoint that plastic decoration was already

rized the valleys of the highland style provinceJar from Tierras Largas. (c) Jar from Tlapacoya.l bowls from Tierras Largas. (f, g) Hemisphericalls from Ajalpan. (Redrawn from Grove 1974;cNeish et al. 1970.)

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popular at 1400–1150 b.c., in what we as-sume the Olmec-centrists would have toconsider “Grandmother Cultures.”

The So-Called “Early Horizon”

Sometime around 1200–1150 b.c., in thewords of Tolstoy (1989:275), “conditionsover much of Mesoamerica evidently fa-

FIG. 5. Southern Veracruz, Tabasco, and C1400–1150 b.c. (a) Chilpate Red-on-Cream tecomate, coastal Chiapas. (c) Centavito Red flutetecomate, coastal Chiapas. (e) Tusta Red fluttecomate with zoned crosshatch, San Lorenzo.coastal Chiapas. (Redrawn from Coe and Diehl

vored demographic growth, craft special-ization, increased interregional exchange,greater disparities in social rank, andmore elaborate ceremonialism.” Certaincommunities (often the largest in each re-gion) seem to display these characteristicsmore than others. The increased interre-gional exchange mentioned by Tolstoy in-volved obsidian, marine shell, iron ores

pas were part of a lowland style province ate, San Lorenzo. (b) Tepa Red-and-White teco-tecomate, San Lorenzo. (d) Cotan Red flutedtecomate, coastal Chiapas. (f) Achiotal GraySalta Orange tecomate with zoned crosshatch,0a; Blake et al. 1995.)

hiamatd

ed(g)198

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and pigments, jade, mica, stingray spines,turtle shell drums, and pottery. Oftenflamboyant, the pottery came in white,black, gray, red, red-and-white, andblack-and-white. Its plastic decoration,while still including rocker stamping, nowfeatured delicate fine-line incising, deepexcising or carving, and combinations ofthese. Many of the carved and incised mo-tifs of 1150 b.c. were so stereotyped andpan-Mesoamerican that some scholars as-sign them to an “Early Horizon” (seeGrove 1989 for discussion).

Olmec-centrists want us to believe thatthis style was created by the Olmec andimposed on the rest of Mexico. There areseveral reasons why that is unconvincing.One reason is that Mexico did not, in fact,

ecome one uniform style province be-ween 1150 and 850 b.c. Ceramic assem-lages from the Basin of Mexico, Puebla,orelos, and Oaxaca—components of the

ld red-on-buff province—still resembledach other more than they did the assem-

FIG. 6. Despite Mexico’s division into styletypes showed up everywhere. Above, collared teand San Lorenzo (c). Below, kaolin bottles from Sfrom Flannery and Marcus 1994; Coe and Dieh

blages of the lowlands. Assemblages fromsouthern Veracruz, Tabasco, and Chia-pas—components of the old lowlandprovince—still found their strongest tieswith each other. Another reason theOlmec-centrists’ model will not work isthat many of the ceramic features theyattribute to the Olmec appear earlier, aremore abundant, and/or are better made atTlapacoya, Tlatilco, Las Bocas, and SanJose Mogote than at San Lorenzo or LaVenta (Grove 1989).

Almost 30 years ago, Joralemon (1971)assembled an inventory of 176 allegedly“Olmec” motifs. While widely cited byOlmec-centrists (e.g. Coe and Diehl 1980a,b), this study has two flawed assumptions:(1) a belief that every motif was Olmec nomatter what region it came from, and (2)the notion that every motif was a deity.Joralemon created a “pantheon” of al-leged “Olmec gods,” but he did so relyingheavily on decorated wares from Tlatilco,Tlapacoya, Las Bocas, and other sites in

vinces at 1400–1150 b.c., some luxury potteryates in kaolin ware from San Jose Mogote (a,b)

Jose Mogote (d) and San Lorenzo (e). (Redrawn80a.)

procoman

l 19

b1sguFP


the Mexican highlands, rather than onGulf Coast pottery. As a result, a funnything happened to the “pantheon” on theway to San Lorenzo: most of its “gods”dropped out. Disappointed Olmec-cen-trists failed to realize that this was becausethe bulk of Joralemon’s motifs were not Olmecat all, but highland Mexican.

A few years later, Pyne (1976) studied595 examples of decorated pottery from1150 – 650 b.c. in the Valley of Oaxaca.Pyne identified 18 free-standing motifs,the full inventory of which can be foundin Figs. 12.5–12.6 of Flannery and Marcus(1994). Rather than referring to these as“gods,” Pyne simply called them “Motifs1-18.” She did point out that Motifs 1– 6resembled a being Coe had called the

FIG. 7. Some decorative techniques were sharedy the highland and lowland style provinces at 1400–150 b.c. Here we see tecomates with zoned rockertamping, in Matadamas Orange from Tierras Lar-as (a), Tatagapa Red from San Lorenzo (b), and annspecified ware from Tlatilco (c). (Redrawn fromlannery and Marcus 1994; Coe and Diehl 1980a;orter 1953.)

“fire-serpent” or “sky-dragon,” whileMotifs 8 –14 resembled another being,the “were-jaguar” (Pyne 1976:273). Be-cause the ceramics Pyne studied couldbe linked to house floors, burials, orfeatures (an advantage Joralemon didnot have), Pyne was able to point outthat Motifs 1– 6 and Motifs 8 –14 weremutually exclusive, that is, associatedwith different households or residentialwards (Pyne 1976:278).

Eventually, by combining Oto-manguean ethnohistory with an evenlarger sample of ceramics, Marcus (1989)concluded that most of the motifs werenot “gods” at all, but references to thegreat world-divisions Earth and Sky(Flannery and Marcus 1994:136 –149).Motifs 1– 6 depicted Sky in its “angry”form, Lightning, a “serpent of fire” inthe sky (Figs. 8a– c). Motifs 8 –14 de-picted Earth—sometimes as an Earthmask (Fig. 9) but often in its “angry”form, Earthquake, complete with a clefthead representing a fissure in the earth(Fig. 8d).

The reason such motifs were wide-spread in early Mexico is because Earthand Sky were parts of an ancient cosmo-logical dichotomy, not because of any-thing the Olmec did. Grove (1989) sug-gests that much of the symbolic contentexisted before 1150 b.c. and is morelikely to reflect the common ancestry ofFormative cultures than the ingenuity ofone culture. By the time the motifs firstappeared on ceramics, they were al-ready stylized and had regional variants.For example, while Earth was oftenshown as Earthquake in the tremor-prone highlands, other artisans referredto Earth by rendering the foot of theGreat Crocodile on whose back they be-lieved they resided (Fig. 10; see Marcus1989).

In sum, despite references to the period1150–850 b.c. as an Early Horizon, Mexicowas still divided into roughly the same

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stylistic provinces seen at 1400–1150 b.c.(Fig. 3). Ties between the Basin of Mexico,Morelos, Puebla, and Oaxaca remainedstrong, with San Jose Mogote and Tlatilco/

lapacoya using similar distinctive arti-acts (Figs. 11, 12) and displaying similar

otifs on similar vessels (Fig. 13). Tiesetween Veracruz/Tabasco and Chiapaslso remained close; for example, a Brain-rd-Robinson matrix calculated bygrinier (1989) shows strong similarity in

eramic assemblages between Sanorenzo (Veracruz) and Mirador-Pluma-

illo (Chiapas). Further artifact similaritiesetween those two sites include thou-ands of iron ore “lug nuts” or multi-

FIG. 8. Representations of Sky/Lightning (a1150–850 b.c. (a) Lightning as a “serpent of fireLightning in which the eyebrow flames are sinSan Jose Mogote. (c) Motif 1 set at a 45° angle, aof Earth with its head cleft by a seismic fissure,framed by “music brackets,” Tierras Largas. (appeared on white ware in the highlands (see F

drilled cubes (Fig. 14). These unusual ar-tifacts—present also at Las Limas, Vera-cruz (Agrinier 1989:21)—are virtually ab-sent to the west of the style boundary.

EVALUATING THE CLAIM OF“INTRUSIVENESS”

Having shown that the major stylisticprovinces of early Mexico were un-changed by the rise of the Olmec, let uslook at the claim in OA that “monumentalthree-dimensional stone sculpture; hol-low whiteware figurines depicting babies;and Calzadas Carved pottery” were “in-trusive elements” at highland centers

and Earth/Earthquake (d–f) on the pottery oflatilco. (b) Pyne’s Motif 1 (a stylized version ofrves and the serpent’s gums are inverted Us),often was in the highlands. (d) Angry versions

pacoya. (e) Stylized Earth mask with cleft headyne’s Motif 13, Earth’s cleft head, as it often19).

–c),” Te cus itTlaf) Pig.


(Diehl and Coe 1996:23). How does oneevaluate such a claim? To argue that aspecific area was the center of origin foran artifact category, we believe youshould to be able to show that it occurredfirst in that area; that it was more abun-dant in that area; that it displayed greatervariety in that area; and/or that it wasmore skillfully made in that area. Let ussee if these criteria are met.

FIG. 9. Fine-line incised versions of Earth on pot-tery, highland style province (1150–850 b.c.). (a)Earth mask on Pilli White vessel, Tlapacoya; thecrossed bands in the mouth are Pyne’s Motif 7. (b)Stylized Earth mask on Leandro Gray vessel, TierrasLargas. (Redrawn from Niederberger 1976; Flanneryand Marcus 1994.)

Monumental Three-Dimensional StoneSculpture

The Gulf Coast does indeed have mon-umental stone sculpture in greatest abun-

FIG. 10. Alternative ways of depicting Earth onpottery, 1150–850 b.c. (a) Angry Earth (with clefthead and anthropomorphized world directions) in-cised on a Pilli White vessel from Tlapacoya. Novessel with a motif this complex has been found inthe San Lorenzo phase, which lacked an incisedwhite ware comparable to Pilli White. (b) The hide ofa crocodile, as depicted on a human figure fromAtlihuayan. The foot of the crocodile (often mistak-enly called a “paw-wing” motif) was widely used asa symbol for Earth (see text). (Redrawn from Nied-erberger 1987: Fig. 439; Benson and de la Fuente1996:187.)


dance and variety. San Lorenzo alone hasproduced more than 70 stone monuments,including 10 colossal heads (Cyphers1997). To be sure, since many heads werefound reused, rededicated, defaced, re-worked, or out of context, we cannot besure how many actually date to the EarlyHorizon. Many similar monuments fromLa Venta are thought to be Middle Forma-tive (850–500 b.c.) in date (Drucker et al.1959; Hammond 1988; Graham 1989;Grove 1997).

The real question is, how often doessuch sculpture appear as an “intrusive el-ement” in the Mexican highlands? Teo-pantecuanitlan (Guerrero) has somethree-dimensional monuments (MartınezDonjuan 1985, 1994), but most of these areMiddle Formative and might have beeninfluenced by the much nearer highlandsite of Chalcatzingo (Grove 1987). Oax-aca’s Early Horizon sculptures, such asMonuments 1 and 2 of San Jose Mogote,are not Olmec in style (Marcus 1989:165;Flannery and Marcus 1994: Fig. 18.9). Inthe Basin of Mexico neither Tlatilco, Co-apexco, nor Tlapacoya has produced stonemonuments imitating those of the Olmec.Thus, while conceding a Gulf Coast originfor colossal heads, we find little evidence

FIG. 11. Diagnostic of the highland style provtrays, used to mix and pour pigments. From L toGualupita (Vaillant and Vaillant 1934), and Tierra, 15.5 cm. Such trays were not a significant partapparently did not find a single one at San Lorefeature spouted trays from the highlands in theirUniversity 1996:325). Such indiscriminate applicregional and cultural significance it might have

for their “intrusion” into the Mexicanhighlands.

Hollow Whiteware Figurines DepictingBabies

Hollow white-slipped “baby dolls” ap-pear to have been present at every majorMexican site of 1150–500 b.c. Tlatilco, Tla-pacoya, Gualupita, Las Bocas, Teopante-cuanitlan, San Jose Mogote, Etlatongo,San Lorenzo, La Venta, and Paso de laAmada have all produced fragments orcomplete specimens.

For hollow white dolls, we lack detailedstatistics comparable to those for thecarved pottery discussed below. It is in-structive, however, to examine examplesfor which proveniences are known or al-leged. Consider the catalogues for two re-cent exhibits of supposedly “Olmec” art:(1) one held by the National Gallery of Artin Washington, D.C. (Benson and de laFuente 1996) and (2) one held by The ArtMuseum of Princeton University (1996).

The National Gallery catalog illustratesseven hollow white dolls of young indi-viduals. All are masterpieces; none arefrom the Gulf Coast. Two are from Tla-tilco, two are from Tlapacoya, one is from

e at 1150–850 b.c. were white-slipped spoutedhese examples come from Tlatilco (Porter 1953),argas (Flannery and Marcus 1994). Diameter ofhe Gulf Coast inventory; Coe and Diehl (1980a). We wonder why Olmec-centrists continue to

hibits of “Olmec art” (Art Museum of Princetonn of the term “Olmec” waters down whatever

d, reducing it to a synonym for “pretty.”

incR, tas Lof tnzoex

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Las Bocas, one is from Atlihuayan (More-los), and the last is “said to be” from Xo-chipala (Guerrero). Pages 130–139 of thePrinceton catalogue illustrate nine morewhich look relatively authentic.5 The al-

5 It is disturbing to see how many of the objects inhe Princeton exhibit resulted from looting. Page af-er page of the catalogue attributes pieces to privateollections. Don’t look for the names of any Mexicanrchaeologists in the table of contents; they wouldn’t

FIG. 12. Also diagnostic of the highland provinceat 1150–850 b.c. were enigmatic ground-stone yugui-tos or “tiny yokes.” Some scholars believe they werepart of the paraphernalia for a ballgame. (a) FromSan Jose Mogote (Flannery and Marcus 1994:Fig.13.9). (b) From Tlatilco (Porter 1953:Pl. 13H). Width of(b), 15.5 cm.

leged proveniences are: three from LasBocas; two from Guerrero; one each fromTlapacoya, “Morelos,” and “the centralhighlands of Mexico;” and one listed sim-ply as “Mexico,” although it was once at-tributed to Las Bocas (Coe 1965: Fig. 184).

The dolls illustrated in both cataloguesexceed in craftsmanship any hollow figu-rine found by Coe and Diehl (1980a:261–279) at San Lorenzo or by Drucker et al.(1959) at La Venta. This reinforces whatwe learned 35 years ago with Coe’s (1965)publication of The Jaguar’s Children: if youwant masterpieces in the hollow whitebaby doll genre, turn to the Mexican high-lands. Such baby dolls were neither de-monstrably earlier, nor more abundant,nor more varied, nor more skillfully madeon the Gulf Coast; indeed, one could makea case that their epicenter was Mexico’scentral highlands.

Coe is aware of this fact, and has tried todismiss it by arguing that while fragmentsof hollow white dolls occur in “householddebris” at San Lorenzo, they were treatedas “prized burial furniture” at highlandsites like Las Bocas or Gualupita (Coe1989:77). The archaeological data do notsupport this contrast. The restored babydoll shown in Fig. 15 was pieced togetherfrom fragments in “occupational refuse”at Tlapacoya (Tolstoy and Paradis 1970:347). Pieces of hollow white dolls occurregularly in houses and middens at Valleyof Oaxaca sites, even hamlets as small asTierras Largas (Marcus 1998b: Figs. 10.25,11.14, 11.44, 12.7, 12.15, 12.22, 14.15, 14.34,15.2). And at Etlatongo in the NochixtlanValley, a broken hollow doll was swept

have been caught dead participating in this displayof their stolen patrimony. It is perhaps forgivablewhen a peasant farmer plows up an important piecein his field and sells it to feed his family. It is unfor-givable when a professional archaeologist or art his-torian, who knows better, validates looting by au-thenticating and glamorizing such pieces.

ssHb(M


into a trash-filled pit with the remains of adead dog (Blomster 1998).

Pottery with Pan-Mesoamerican CarvedMotifs

Finally, let us examine the claim in OAthat Calzadas Carved pottery was an “in-trusive element” at sites like Tlapacoyaand San Jose Mogote. Since key strati-graphic units from Tlapacoya, San JoseMogote, and San Lorenzo have been pub-lished in detail, we can compare all threesites to see if the evidence supports thisclaim. We will look at several aspects ofthe pottery with pan-Mesoamerican mo-tifs—its abundance in terms of sherds percubic meter; the percentage of the ceramicassemblage it makes up; its diversity insurface color and vessel shape; and thevariety of pan-Mesoamerican motifspresent in each region.

The Basin of Mexico

We begin at Tlapacoya in the Basin ofMexico (Niederberger 1976, 1987). Nieder-

FIG. 14. Just as highland Mexican sites of 1150–850 b.c. shared ground-stone yuguitos, many lowlandsites shared multidrilled iron ore cubes or “lugnuts.” These examples, averaging 3.1 cm thick, comefrom Mirador-Plumajillo (a–c) and San Lorenzo (d–f).(Drawn from photographs in Agrinier 1989:25; Coeand Diehl 1980a:242.)

FIG. 13. Between 1150 and 850 b.c. pottery as-emblages of the highland style province sharedimilar combinations of vessel shape and motif.ere we see dark bottles with crosshatched sun-urst motifs from Tlatilco (a) and San Jose Mogote

b). (Redrawn from Porter 1953:Pl. 6I; Flannery andarcus 1994:99). Height of (a) 16.2 cm.

to


berger’s unit “Zohapilco-Tlapacoya IV”was a stratigraphic trench one meter wide,dug by natural stratigraphy. The relevantphases are Nevada (Levels 13, 12), 1350–1250 b.c.; Ayotla (Levels 11, 10, 9), 1250–1000 b.c.; and Manantial (Levels 8, 7, 6),1000–800 b.c. Profile drawings suggestthat 39 m of the trench were opened to thedepth of Level 9, while no more than 30 mwere opened to Level 13 or below (Nied-erberger 1976: Pl. 3, 4).

The trench itself was quite long, andfew of the levels ran for its full length. Forexample, Level 9 ran for 20 m and was 60cm thick, so approximately 12 cubicmeters were removed (1 3 20 3 0.6 m).Roughly 12 m3 of Level 8 were excavated;he volume removed from Level 7 wasnly 4.4 m3 (1 3 11 3 0.4 m). We have

chosen to highlight Levels 9–7 at Tlapa-

FIG. 15. Pilli White hollow doll from Tlapacoya.This doll was found in pieces in household refuse; ithas since been restored as shown. Height, 41.5 cm.(Drawn from a photo in Benson and de la Fuente1996:185.)

coya because they have the highest fre-quency of pan-Mesoamerican motifs. Thevolumes of earth removed can be com-pared with those at San Jose Mogote andSan Lorenzo (see below).

Now let us look at Fig. 16, the graph ofsherd frequencies in Niederberger’strench, and Table 1, the sherd counts of allTlapacoya pottery types bearing pan-Mesoamerican motifs. Note, first of all,that 6 pottery types at Tlapacoya bearpan-Mesoamerican motifs. Such motifsoccur on local dark gray wares (TortugaPolished and Volcan Polished); gray warepossibly imported from Oaxaca (AtoyacFine Gray); white-rimmed black ware(Valle White-rim Black); white-slippedware (Pilli White); and resist white ware(Paloma Negative).

Next, note how common many of thesetypes were. Tortuga Polished was the sec-ond most abundant ware of the Ayotlaphase, outnumbered only by the sherds ofutilitarian jars (Chalco Smoothed). Tor-tuga Polished was 20% of the sherds inLevels 13-6; there were 7728 sherds of it inLevel 8 alone. Volcan Polished, a relatedware constituting less than 5% of the pot-tery, reached a peak of 787 sherds in Level9. These two gray wares bore many differ-ent motifs, from carved versions of Pyne’sMotifs 1, 2, and 7 to fine-line incised orhachured versions of her Motifs 12 and 15(Niederberger 1976: Pl. 35, 37).

Third, note that Tortuga Polished andVolcan Polished were local types; they didnot appear suddenly at 1150 b.c., as if in-troduced from elsewhere. Both werepresent throughout the Nevada phase(1350–1250 b.c.), with Tortuga Polishedrepresenting more than 20% of the classi-fied sherds at that time. Valle White-rimBlack—another type already present atTlapacoya by 1350 b.c.—was also used forpan-Mesoamerican motifs (Niederberger1976: Pl. 45).

What adds to the variety of Tlapacoyapottery is the fact that white-slipped

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wares were also used for pan-Mesoameri-can motifs. Pilli White appeared in nu-merous bowl forms, some carved withPyne’s Motif 1 and others showing herMotifs 10 and 15 in fine-line hachure(Niederberger 1976: Pl. 42). Paloma Nega-tive, a related ware of the Ayotla phase,was used for one of the most elegant ver-sions of Earth ever found, a vessel eclips-ing any found by Coe and Diehl at SanLorenzo (Fig. 17).

Finally we come to Atoyac Fine Gray, animported ware decorated with Pyne’s Mo-tifs 1, 2, and 7 (Niederberger 1976: Pl. 46).Some vessels of this type (under the ear-lier name “Tlapacoya Gray”) have beenstudied by geologists Howel Williams andWayne Lambert, who consider them tohave been made in Oaxaca (Weaver 1967:30; Lambert 1972; Niederberger 1987:564;Flannery and Marcus 1994:259–262). Wesuspect that many of these vessels belongto a Oaxaca type called Delfina Fine Gray.However, other Atoyac Fine Gray vesselsillustrated by Niederberger (1976: Pl. 46)were probably made locally.

To summarize: carved and incised pan-Mesoamerican motifs were neither rarenor “intrusive” at Tlapacoya. The darkgray wares on which they occurred hadbeen among the most common local typesat 1350 b.c., and the motifs themselves

Zohapilco-Tlapacoya IV. Total Sherd Counts of thLevels 13-6, Phases Nevada Through M

Type

Nevada

13 12 1

ortuga Polished 442 176olcan Polished 44 13illi White 7 5aloma Negative — 1alle White-rim Black 31 19toyac Fine Gray 1 4

All classified sherds 1954 971 1

were common by 1250 b.c. In Level 8,whose volume was 12 m3, there were 7728sherds of Tortuga Polished; in Level 7,amounting to only 4.4 m3, there were 2569sherds of that type. Moreover, pan-

Pottery Types Bearing Pan-Mesoamerican Motifs,ntial. (Source: Niederberger 1976: 164.)

Ayotla Manantial

1 9 8 7 6

4 4318 7728 2569 2861 787 394 39 57 461 424 39 28 58 16 12 30 600 522 28 13 340 142 14 1

7 20418 30914 11828 2278

FIG. 17. Four angry versions of Earth/Earth-quake–one for each of the four great Mesoamericanworld directions–circle this bowl from Tlapacoya.The type, Paloma Negative, combines (1) white slipand (2) resist white over pale brown. Locally made atTlapacoya, Paloma Negative was traded as far asOaxaca. Highland vessels like this should not becalled “Olmec.” Coe and Diehl (1980a) report nosherds of this ware from San Lorenzo and illustrateno vessel approaching it in sophistication. (Drawnfrom a photograph in Benson and de la Fuente 1996:202.)

e 6ana

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Mesoamerican motifs (sometimes bril-liantly executed) also occurred on Tlapa-coya’s white-rimmed black, white-slipped, and resist white wares.

San Jose Mogote

The Valley of Oaxaca lies 330 km fromTlapacoya, but only 210 km from SanLorenzo. If the Olmec were truly thesource of inspiration alleged in OA, Oa-xaca’s Early Formative ceramics shouldresemble San Lorenzo’s more than Tlapa-coya’s. In fact, the reverse is true (Flan-nery and Marcus 1994).

The relevant periods in Oaxaca are theTierras Largas phase (1400–1150 b.c.) andSan Jose phase (1150–850 b.c.). Fig. 18shows the changing frequencies of potterytypes during the course of these periods,including the crucial Tierras Largas/SanJose transition. All proveniences used inFig. 18 come from San Jose Mogote andTierras Largas, two sites excavated by nat-ural stratigraphic units. Complete sherdcounts can be found in Flannery and Mar-cus (1994).

Four pottery types of the San Jose phasewere used as the medium for pan-Mesoamerican motifs. One, LeandroGray, resembles Tlapacoya’s Tortuga Pol-ished and Volcan Polished. Another, SanJose Black-and-White, resembles Tlapa-coya’s Valle White-rim Black. Still an-other, Atoyac Yellow-white, resemblesTlapacoya’s Pilli White. Finally we cometo Delfina Fine Gray, an export warewhich—as we saw above—was traded to(and imitated by) Tlapacoya.

Leandro Gray was one of the most com-mon pottery types of the San Jose phase,usually exceeded in frequency only byutilitarian cooking jars (Fidencio Coarse).Leandro Gray grew out of Tierras LargasBurnished Plain, the most common utili-tarian ware of the Tierras Largas phase.The changes producing Leandro Gray,which emerged during the Tierras Largas/

San Jose phase transition, simply requiredburnishing the ware twice instead of once,then firing it in a reducing atmosphere(Flannery and Marcus 1994:157–165). Le-andro Gray went on to constitute 23% ofall sherds in middle San Jose times, a per-centage comparable to that of TortugaPolished in Tlapacoya’s early Manantialphase.

Table 2 gives the actual counts of Lean-dro Gray, Delfina Fine Gray, San JoseBlack-and-White, and Atoyac Yellow–white sherds from an excavation in Area Aof San Jose Mogote (Flannery and Marcus1994: Figs. 14.1, 14.4). We have chosen tofeature this excavation because it covered12 m2, virtually the same area as an im-portant excavation at San Lorenzo whichwe will discuss below. The stratigraphiclevels consist of a midden (Zone D) andthe remains of four superimposed house-hold units (Units C4–C1). The details canbe found in Flannery and Marcus (1994:Table 14.1).

The Zone D midden was roughly 40 cmthick. The volume excavated was 4.8–5.0m3, slightly greater than that of Level 7 atTlapacoya. The number of Leandro Graysherds from Zone D (2332) is similar to thenumber of Tortuga Polished sherds fromTlapacoya’s Level 7 (2569). On the otherhand, the number of Delfina Fine Graysherds from Zone D (106) is greater thanthe number of Atoyac Fine Gray sherdsfrom Tlapacoya’s Level 7 (14). This is rea-sonable, since petrographic evidence sug-gests that such gray ware is native to Oa-xaca.

Household Units C4-C1 each producedfewer sherds than Zone D, since the vol-ume of earth removed from each was onthe order of 2.4 m3. Nevertheless, eachhousehold produced 674 to 1667 sherds ofLeandro Gray, and 16 to 43 sherds ofDelfina Fine Gray. Such quantities ofsherds are consistent with what might beexpected from volumes of earth half thatof Tlapacoya’s Level 7. Like Tortuga Pol-

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ished, Leandro Gray was produced in awide variety of vessel shapes: cylinders,outleaned-wall bowls, tecomates, bol-stered-rim bowls, spouted trays, vertical-necked jars, and many others. The varietyof pan-Mesoamerican motifs was alsogreat, including both carved examples(Pyne’s Motifs 1–7) and fine-line incisedexamples (Pyne’s Motifs 8–11 and 15–18).

Atoyac Yellow–white, a ware almost aspopular as Leandro Gray, was also used asa medium for pan-Mesoamerican motifs(Marcus 1989). Like Leandro Gray, it firstappeared during the Tierras Largas/SanJose phase transition and grew out of Tier-ras Largas Burnished Plain. (In this case,the new ware was created simply by giv-ing Tierras Largas Burnished Plain a whiteslip.) In contrast to Leandro Gray—whichwas most often used for depictions of Sky/Lightning—Atoyac Yellow–white was mostoften used for depictions of Earth/Earth-quake (Pyne’s Motifs 8–10, 12, and 14).

The Valley of Oaxaca was one of theearliest regions to feature the “double-line-break,” an incised motif in which par-

San Jose Mogote, Area A. Total Sherd Counts of the Stratigraphic Units (All Belonging to the San Jonits C4 Through C1. (Source: Flannery and Marcus

Type D

All Leandro Gray sherds 2332Decorated Leandro sherds 298Excised Leandro sherds 282

All Delfina Fine Gray sherds 106Decorated Delfina sherds 16Excised Delfina sherds 9

All San Jose Black-and-White sherds 150Decorated B/W sherds 2Excised B/W sherds 2

All Atoyac Yellow-white sherds 1904Decorated Atoyac sherds 117Excised Atoyac sherds 38Double-line-break rims 9

All classified sherds 11356

allel lines turn up or down at intervals(Flannery and Marcus 1994: Figs. 12.19–12.22). Yellow-white sherds of the San Josephase suggest that the double-line breakoriginated as a simplified version of Earth,with its cleft head and associated “musicbrackets” (Fig. 19). This is significant for

4 Pottery Types Bearing Pan-Mesoamerican Motifs.Phase) are the Zone D Midden (D) and Household94: Table 14.1.)

C4 C3 C2 C1

1160 1667 949 674149 151 74 46141 132 57 3843 43 27 165 4 5 55 4 5 5

36 51 19 141 2 — —1 2 — —

762 1073 670 67651 81 51 4614 2 1 13 23 24 27

4546 6876 3893 3361

FIG. 19. As early as 1150 b.c., abstract versions ofEarth/Earthquake were incised on white-slippedpottery in the highland style province. This sherd ofAtoyac Yellow–white from the Valley of Oaxacashows the cranial fissure (Pyne’s Motif 13) and “mu-sic brackets” often associated with depictions ofEarth (see Fig. 8). No comparable white ware withincised Earth/Earthquake motifs has been found in1150–850 b.c. levels at San Lorenzo. (Drawn from aphotograph in Flannery and Marcus 1994:147.)

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three reasons. First, it reinforces the asso-ciation of white ware with Earth/Earth-quake motifs. Second, it emphasizes theties between Oaxaca and the Basin ofMexico, where similar motifs occur onPilli White (compare Niederberger 1987:Figs. 475–476 with Flannery and Marcus1994: Fig. 19.1). Third, it suggests that thedouble-line break variant of the Earth mo-tif originated in the Mexican highlandsaround 1150 b.c. Not until three hundred

ears later, in the Nacaste phase, did a com-arable incised white ware show up at Sanorenzo (Coe and Diehl 1980a:194).Finally we come to San Jose Black-and-

White, Oaxaca’s version of Tlapacoya’sValle White-rim Black. Such ware was notpresent in Oaxaca until 1150 b.c.; oncepresent, however, it was carved withPyne’s Motifs 7 and 11.

San Lorenzo

We turn now to San Lorenzo, the al-leged wellspring of pan-Mesoamericanmotifs. In their report on the Yale project,Coe and Diehl (1980a: Tables 4-1 to 4-4)publish the sherd counts from four strati-graphic excavations at San Lorenzo. Weassume that these were their best strati-graphic units, since they chose to publishthem in detail.

Our first surprise is that Coe and Diehldefine only one pottery type—CalzadasCarved—which bears pan-Mesoamericanmotifs. Their white-rimmed black waredoes not bear such motifs, and even moresignificantly, the San Lorenzo phase has noincised white ware analogous to Atoyac Yel-low–white or Pilli White. This fact has beenconfirmed by Ann Cyphers (personalcommunication, 1996) following her re-cent excavations at San Lorenzo. Owing tothis lack of incised white wares, the SanLorenzo phase has surprisingly few pan-Mesoamerican motifs featuring Earth/Earthquake.

Calzadas Carved appears abruptly at

the start of the San Lorenzo phase (Coeand Diehl 1980a: Fig. 97), rather than hav-ing a long previous history like Tlapa-coya’s Tortuga Polished. Equally surpris-ing is the fact that Calzadas Carved seemsto be relatively rare, not exceeding 4% ofthe classified sherds. Having been shownCyphers’ new collections from SanLorenzo, we have no doubt that she willone day be able to divide Calzadas Carvedinto (1) a softer and darker gray ware likeLeandro Gray/Tortuga Polished, and (2) aharder and lighter gray ware like DelfinaFine Gray/Atoyac Fine Gray. At this writ-ing, however, we are limited to Coe andDiehl’s types. Let us therefore look at theirfour published stratigraphic units.

SL-PNW-St. II, a major stratigraphicunit for which Coe and Diehl present botha frequency graph and a sherd count, be-gan as a 12 m2 excavation (Coe and Diehl1980a: Fig. 51, Fig. 97, Table 4-1). In itslower levels the excavated area was twicereduced, but its upper levels are compa-rable in volume to the 12 m2 excavation inArea A at San Jose Mogote. Levels O-K1are attributed to the “pre-Olmec” Bajıoand Chicharras phases (1300–1150 b.c.);K2 is mixed; and Levels J–F are assignedto the San Lorenzo phase, 1150–850 b.c.(Fig. 20, Table 3).

Calzadas Carved, regarded by Coe andDiehl (1980a:159) as “100 percent Olmec,”occurred in Levels K2-F. What stands outis the small number of sherds—only 29 inall of SL-PNW-St. II. Level K2, whose vol-ume was somewhere between 3 and 6 m3

(3 3 2 3 0.5–1.0 m), produced 1617 classi-able sherds, of which only 19 were Cal-adas Carved. Level F, whose volume wasoughly 6–9 m3 (4 3 3 3 0.5–0.75 m), pro-uced 133 classifiable sherds, of whichnly 5 were Calzadas Carved. Nor do theurprises end there: the total number ofalzadas Carved sherds produced by theale project’s four published stratigraphicuts was only 38 (Coe and Diehl 1980a:ables 4-1 to 4-4).

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We know, of course, how Coe and Diehlwill rationalize these low counts; they willargue that poor preservation of sherd sur-faces at San Lorenzo made it impossible toidentify those sherds of Calzadas Carvedvessels that did not bear the actual excis-ing (Coe and Diehl 1980a:131). We re-spond to this apologia by giving the counts

f excised Leandro Gray sherds from Areaof San Jose Mogote in Table 2. The Zonemidden alone, with a volume of no

ore than 5 m3, produced 282 excisedsherds of Leandro Gray and 9 more ofDelfina Fine Gray. Household Unit C4,with a volume of only 2.4 m3, produced141 excised sherds of Leandro Gray and 5more of Delfina Fine Gray. Even if wecount only those gray sherds bearing ac-tual excising, Area A produced 678.

To be sure, since Cyphers has openedup larger areas of San Lorenzo, her sam-ple of Calzadas Carved is now larger thanCoe and Diehl’s. No amount of earthmoved, however, will make up for theaforementioned lack of white-slippedware comparable to Pilli White andAtoyac Yellow–white. At Tlapacoya andSan Jose Mogote, such white wares bearully half the pan-Mesoamerican motifs;ake away the white ware and one loses

ost of the depictions of Earth/Earth-uake. Area A of San Jose Mogote had

more than 300 white-slipped sherds withvariants of pan-Mesoamerican motifs; SanLorenzo phase levels in SL-PNW-St. IIhad none.

San Lorenzo, Unit SL-PNW-St.II. Total Sherd Couan-Mesoamerican Motifs, in Levels O-B, Phases Bable 4-1.)

Type

Bajıo Chicharras M

O L K1

Calzadas Carved — — —

All classified sherds 288 155 386

White-rimmed black ware began at SanLorenzo in the Chicharras phase (1200b.c.). But Perdida Black-and-White, therelevant San Lorenzo type, was neithercarved nor incised (Coe and Diehl 1980a:Fig. 156). It most closely resembles Coate-pec White-rimmed Black from the Te-huacan and Oaxaca Valleys (MacNeish,Peterson, and Flannery 1970:108; Flanneryand Marcus 1994:274), and may in fact bethe same ware. Coatepec White-rimmedBlack, while extremely well-made, wasnot carved. This lack of carved white-rimmed black ware contributes to thesmaller repertoire of pan-Mesoamericanmotifs at San Lorenzo.

That’s right: San Lorenzo displays fewerpan-Mesoamerican motifs than either Tlapa-coya or San Jose Mogote. We should not besurprised, since Tlapacoya had 6 potterytypes bearing such motifs, San Jose Mo-gote had 4, and San Lorenzo had only one.We have already stressed San Lorenzo’slack of Earth/Earthquake motifs on white-slipped ware; even Calzadas Carved,however, shows an impoverishment ofmotifs. Aside from a sunburst motif (con-fidently called “God III, an eagle” by Coeand Diehl 1980a:166), most illustrated mo-tifs on Calzadas Carved are versions ofPyne’s Motif 1 (e.g. Coe and Diehl 1980a:Figs. 138, 143).

When one focuses in detail on the use ofPyne’s Motif 1 by the makers of CalzadasCarved, one sees another difference be-tween the highland and lowland style

of Calzadas Carved, the Only Pottery Type Bearingo Through Nacaste. (Source: Coe and Diehl 1980a:

d San Lorenzo Nacaste

J H F D C B

9 2 3 5 — — —

7 87 214 133 2137 689 4399

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K2

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161


provinces. At Tlapacoya and San JoseMogote, Motif 1 was usually placed onbowls at a 45° angle (Figs. 21a–b). At SanLorenzo and various Chiapas sites, on theother hand, the same motif was usuallyplaced horizontally (Figs. 21c–d).

The occasional exceptions to this pat-tern are interesting. In 1972 Pyne, afterstudying hundreds of carved sherds fromOaxaca, examined the Yale collection ofCalzadas Carved from San Lorenzo.While most of the carved motifs were sethorizontally on bolstered-rim bowls, Pynenoticed eight which were set at a 45° angle

FIG. 21. In the highland province, Pyne’s Moas shown in (a) and (b). In the lowland province,in (c) and (d). (a) Volcan Polished bolstered-rimLeandro Gray cylindrical bowl from the ValleCalzadas Carved bolstered-rim bowl from Sanphase bolstered-rim bowl from the Chiapas covisitors crossed the style boundary often enouget al. [1995: Fig. 17a] illustrate a gray jar neck froway typical of jar necks at San Jose Mogote.)

on cylindrical bowls. Pyne was allowed totake small pieces off these sherds so thatWilliam O. Payne, the Oaxaca project ce-ramicist, could examine them under themicroscope. Four of the eight fragmentsappear to be Leandro Gray, one resem-bled Delfina Fine Gray, and two otherscontained decomposed gneiss or alteredpegmatite like that present in FormativeOaxaca clays (Flannery and Marcus 1994:262–263). This contrasts with locally madeCalzadas Carved, which is tempered with“fine, quartzite sand” (Coe and Diehl1980a:162). Thus at least 7 examples of this

was usually carved onto vessels at a 45° angle,tif 1 was usually carved horizontally, as shown

wl from Tlapacoya (Niederberger 1976:170). (b)f Oaxaca (Flannery and Marcus 1994:181). (c)renzo (Coe and Diehl 1980a:163). (d) Cuadros(Blake et al. 1995:178). (To be sure, gifts andprovide some exceptions. For example, Blakehiapas with Motif 1 at a 45° angle, done in the

tif 1Mobo

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white (or resist white) wares unknown in


allegedly “100 percent Olmec” ware maybe from Oaxaca.

It is significant that Pyne was successfulat picking intrusive Oaxaca sherds out ofthe Yale collections based solely on vesselshape and the 45° placement of motifs; itconfirms the relationship between stylisticpreference and region of origin. (Paren-thetically, we did not notice any additional“Oaxaca-like” sherds in Cyphers’ collec-tions of Calzadas Carved, which camefrom different proveniences at SanLorenzo.)

THE NEED FOR A MORERESTRICTED DEFINITION OF

“OLMEC STYLE”

In sum, only for colossal sculpture can acase be made that it is “indigenous” to theGulf Coast. Even Olmec-centrists turn tothe central highlands of Mexico whentheir art exhibit requires lots of complete,well-made examples of hollow white babydolls. We should stop calling these dolls“Olmec,” since to do so results in the par-adox pointed out by Serra Puche et al.(1996:39): it leaves us with “more objectsof [alleged] ‘Olmec’ style in the highlandsof Mesoamerica than on the coasts of Ta-basco or Veracruz.”

In the case of pottery carved with Earthand Sky motifs, the notion that it is “in-trusive” in the Mexican highlands is non-sense. At Tlapacoya, pan-Mesoamericanmotifs occur on six different pottery typesranging from dark gray to fine gray, white,white-rim black, and resist white. Thosetypes represent more than a quarter of thepottery assemblage, occurring at densitiesof up to 769 sherds per cubic meter. Vesselshapes are diverse, and at least 6 of Pyne’smotifs (nos. 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, 15) were com-mon. Earth/Earthquake motifs from Tla-pacoya include some of the most bril-liantly executed masterpieces of EarlyHorizon art, and many of them are on

the San Lorenzo phase.At San Jose Mogote, pan-Mesoamerican

motifs occur on four different potterytypes, ranging from dark gray to fine gray,white, and white-rim black. Becausewhite-slipped ware is so common in Oa-xaca, these four types represent more thana third of the pottery assemblage, occur-ring at densities of up to 1180 sherds percubic meter. Sky/Lightning motifs (nos.1–6) were more common on gray ware,while Earth/Earthquake motifs (nos. 8–10,12, 14–15) were more common on whiteware.

At San Lorenzo, pan-Mesoamericanmotifs occur only on Calzadas Carved.Carved sherds represent less than 4% ofthe pottery assemblage, occurring at den-sities of 3–6/m3 in Coe and Diehl’s fourbest stratigraphic proveniences. The de-sign repertoire is essentially limited toPyne’s Motifs 1, 7, 11, and a sunburst. Inpart because the San Lorenzo phase lacksa white ware equivalent to Pilli White orAtoyac Yellow-white, it also lacks most ofthe Earth/Earthquake motifs so wide-spread in the highlands. Motif 1, whenpresent, is usually set horizontally; a fewsherds with motifs set at a 45° angleturned out to be made of clays like thoseused in Oaxaca.

What would an impartial observer con-clude from this? That the Basin of Mexicohas so far produced the most abundant,varied, and skillfully produced assem-blage of vessels with pan-Mesoamericanmotifs, and that the farther away youtravel, the more impoverished the assem-blages are in surface color, vessel shape,range of motifs, and quality of execution.Many regions contributed to the richnessand diversity of Early Horizon ceramics,and San Lorenzo never had more than asubset of the shapes and motifs. Weshould stop calling such pottery “Olmec,”and restrict that term to the chiefdoms of


southern Veracruz/Tabasco and the ob-jects most diagnostic of that region.

DOWNSIZING THE “OLMECPANTHEON”

Our data on carved pottery do morethan refute the notion that it was intrusivein the highlands. They spell Gotterdam-merung for the pantheon of Olmec “gods.”

Recall that in his study of Formativeiconography, Joralemon (1971) drewheavily on the Basin of Mexico, Morelos,Puebla, and Guerrero in assembling hisinventory of motifs. Each motif was thenassumed to be a “god.” Expecting to findall these “gods” at San Lorenzo, Coe andDiehl (1980a:166) expressed disappoint-ment when they found only two. The rea-son for their disappointment should nowbe clear: it was highland Mexico that hadthe greatest repertoire of pan-Mesoameri-can motifs. Far from being the source of allEarly Horizon iconography, the Olmecwere “out of the loop” relative to the Basinof Mexico, Morelos, Puebla, and Oaxaca.Had Joralemon been restricted to motifsactually found on pottery at San Lorenzo, hewould have had to conclude that theOlmec were nearly monotheistic.

SEWALL WRIGHT’S MODEL:AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE

OLMEC-CENTRIC VIEW

It should now be clear why our positioncannot be described as primus inter pares.The Olmec may have been “first amongequals” in sculpture; some Olmec chief-doms may even have been “first” in pop-ulation size. But they were not the first touse adobes, stone masonry, and lime plas-ter, nor to lay out buildings 8° N of east.Nor were they “first among equals” in theproduction of white-slipped baby dolls orcarved pottery with pan-Mesoamericanmotifs. Olmec chiefly centers were big,but not as big as Cahokia; they built

mound groups, but no more impressivethan Tonga’s; they set up colossal heads,but not as many as Easter Island; theycarved jade and wood, but no more skill-fully than the Maori. The Olmec were im-pressive enough not to need the hyper-bolic claims of Olmec-centrists. Yet like allchiefdoms, they were a product of theirtime, their place, and their interactionswith their neighbors.

It is no accident, we believe, that 1150–850 b.c. was a period of rapid social evo-lution in Mesoamerican prehistory. It wasa period during which many competingchiefly centers were concentrating man-power, intensifying agriculture, exchang-ing sumptuary goods, and borrowingideas from each other. We believe it wasthe intensity of this competitive interac-tion, rather than the supremacy of any oneculture, that made social evolution sorapid. The social landscape of Mexico wasone in which dozens of emerging chieflycenters were (1) sufficiently isolated tofind the best adaptations for their respec-tive regions, yet (2) sufficiently in contactto borrow relevant innovations from otherregions as they arose. This is analogous toa situation the biologist Sewall Wright(1939) once identified as favoring rapidevolution.

Wright modeled a hypothetical “adap-tive landscape” of “very rugged charac-ter” on which a genetically flexible popu-lation might live (Fig. 22). The rises in thislandscape were not hills, but peaks of pos-itive selective values—that is, gene com-binations that would be selected for.Those peaks were in turn separated by“saddles” of low selective values.

Let us imagine, Wright (1939:42) said,“an indefinitely large but freely inter-breeding species living under conditionswhich have not changed . . . for a longtime.” As the result of natural selection,that species has come to occupy a certainfield of variation around one of the adap-tive peaks—in the case of Fig. 22a, the


peak in the upper left corner of the map.There is, however, an even higher peak ofselective values available in the lowerright corner. The evolutionary problem

FIG. 22. Six possible models for evolutionaryContour lines indicate a rugged adaptive landsvalue shown as peaks (1). Model f has the greatext).

then becomes: how may the species “con-tinually find its way from lower to higherpeaks in such a system” (ibid.)?

Wright considered six possible scenar-

nge, redrawn from Sewall Wright (1939:Fig. 9).e, with genetic combinations of high selectivet potential for rapid evolutionary advance (see

chacaptes

slow” and depends largely on “trial and


ios for change in this system. If mutationrates were to increase, or selection pres-sure were to be reduced (Fig. 22a), thepopulation might spread downhill fromits peak and, by further spreading across asaddle, fortuitously reach a higher peak.The cost of such a spread, however, wouldbe an average lowering of the popula-tion’s adaptive level. Wright then consid-ered the opposite scenario, one in whichthe mutation rate decreased or selectionpressure increased (Fig. 22b). In this case,the population might shrink to cover onlythe top of the peak, strengthening its ad-aptation but decreasing its chance of cap-turing a neighboring pinnacle.

Were the environment to change (Fig.22c), so would the adaptive landscape; thespecies might now find itself in a saddle.Under conditions of severe selection pres-sure, the species would “merely be keptcontinually on the move” (S. Wright 1939:44). It would, over time, be shuffled out oflow peaks more easily than high ones,“and thus should gradually work its wayto the higher general regions of the fieldas a whole” (ibid.). Wright called this “anevolutionary process of major impor-tance,” but one which requires a long pe-riod of time and continual environmentalchange.

Two of Wright’s scenarios, shown inFigs. 22d and e, relate to inbreeding. Un-der conditions of close inbreeding (d) cer-tain alleles gradually become fixed, re-gardless of whether or not they areselectively advantageous. The result is apopulation low in variability, one whichsoon moves erratically downward from itspeak, and finally becomes so homoge-neous that its change is slow and largelynon-adaptive. Under conditions of onlyslight inbreeding (e), the species tends towander continuously around its peakwithout leaving it entirely. It may find ahigher adaptive peak during this wander-ing, but its rate of progress is “extremely

error” (S. Wright 1939:45).Finally we come to the scenario of most

relevance to this article, Fig. 22f. This isthe case of a large species that is subdi-vided into smaller local races, each breed-ing largely within itself but occasionallycross-breeding (S. Wright 1939:46). Withmany local races spread out over the rug-ged landscape, there is a good chance thatat least one will come under the influenceof another peak, acquiring a preadapta-tion useful to the species as a whole. Bet-ter still, several of the local races may ac-quire preadaptations. Those races willexpand in number and, by cross breedingwith the others, make useful preadapta-tions available to all. This in turn pulls thewhole species to a higher position. “Finedivision of a species into partially isolatedlocal populations,” said Wright (1939:46),“provides a most effective mechanism fortrial and error in the field of gene combi-nations and thus for evolutionary advanceby intergroup selection.”

To be sure, Wright’s conclusionsemerged from research on genetics, andare most relevant to biological evolution.We believe, however, that Wright had dis-covered a deeper underlying principle,one relevant to sociocultural evolution aswell. That principle can be stated as fol-lows: One of the most favorable scenariosfor rapid evolutionary change is the divi-sion of a large population into numeroussmaller units, all adaptively autonomousbut still periodically in contact. Their au-tonomy increases the likelihood that eachwill adapt successfully to its own socialand environmental setting; their periodiccontact increases the likelihood that anybeneficial innovation will eventually bepicked up by the entire population. Webelieve that Wright’s principle underliesseveral successful middle-range theories,including Renfrew and Cherry’s (1986)“peer-polity interaction.”

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CONCLUSIONS

“Competitive interaction” is a bettername for our position than primus interpares. In a scenario analogous to Wright’sModel f, chiefdoms in the Basin of Mexicoadapt to the humid plains of their lakesystem, export obsidian, and excel atcarved pottery and hollow dolls. Thechiefdom at Chalcatzingo builds damsand irrigation canals, exports white kaolinclay, and excels at carving bas-reliefs onliving rock. Chiefdoms in the Valley ofOaxaca develop canal and well irrigation,export magnetite mirrors, and becomeprecocious in the use of adobe, stucco, andstone masonry. The Olmec chiefdomsfarm river levees, excel at three-dimen-sional sculpture, and build colored claymounds. It is the adaptive autonomy andfrequent competitive interaction of suchchiefdoms that speed up evolution andeventually make useful technologies andsociopolitical strategies available to all re-gions.

The anachronistic notion of Olmec im-perialism spreading outward from theGulf Coast, colonizing highland culturesand converting them to foreign ways, issimply not supported by the archaeologi-cal record. Set aside the fact that theOlmec had no expertise at arid highlandagriculture. Set aside the fact that theOlmec lacked most of the Earth/Earth-quake symbols so important in highlandcosmology. Consider only that the Olmec-centric model—like Wright’s Modeld—leads to homogeneity, which wouldactually slow down evolution. It would doo (1) by eliminating autonomy, whichad allowed each region to produce the

nnovations best fitting its natural and so-iocultural setting, and (2) by reducingompetition among regions, one of the en-ines that drove social evolution.We recommend removing the Mother

ulture from life-support and laying hero rest beside the Kulturkreise and 19th-

century diffusionism. The Mother Cul-ture’s dwindling band of defenders thinkthat if they can just inflate their estimatesof Olmec site sizes, find more basalt mon-uments, and convince us that San Lorenzowas shaped like a cosmic bird, we’llchange our minds. But we have all seenTeotihuacan—that quintessential exam-ple of Classic Mesoamerican civilization—and it is not a collection of earthenmounds, colored clay platforms, and co-lossal heads. It is made of adobes, stonemasonry, lime plaster, and irrigation agri-culture, all of which began outside theOlmec area. If the Gulf Coast was Me-soamerica’s mother, surely the highlandswere its father.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank John O’Shea for suggesting this article.David Grove, Ann Cyphers, Christine Niederberger,Mari Carmen Serra Puche, and Richard Lesure pro-vided us with unpublished data. Robert Sharer andJerry Sabloff gave us good advice, as did anonymousreviewers whose suggestions we included. We alone,however, are responsible for the paper’s content. Weacknowledge the influence of Sewall Wright, manyof whose lectures at the Universities of Chicago andMichigan we attended. All illustrations are the orig-inal work of John Klausmeyer and Kay Clahassey.

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