An Olmec Village Southern Mexico's Olmec were a

Southern Mexico's Olmec were a highly advanced Mesoamerican culture which emerged around 1200 B.C. and survived for about a millennium. They were perhaps the earliest American civilization to make significant progress in such fields as art, politics, religion, and economics.

Around 1000 B.C., Olmec civilization was centered at San Lorenzo in Veracruz, Mexico. This city was characterized by basalt monuments (Scarre, 1993, p. 128). The basalt was quarried from the Tuxtlas Mountains. These forest-covered volcanic cones now rise a surrounding swampy river floodplain. During early Olmec times, mining centers occurred at Tres Zapotes and Laguna de los Cerros. Typical peasant farming villages may have served as waypoints along the San Juan River between these two mining areas (Stuart, 1993, pp. 88-114).

Such a village would have had to be cut out of the jungle. They probably cleared land using primitive slash-and-burn methods. This must have been rather difficult considering that the Olmec had no iron tools.

A visitor would immediately observe that the people lived in pole-and-thatch houses. The simple structures consisted merely of small one-story huts made out of plant materials: postholes were dug for the poles, which were then covered with reeds or palm leaves (Rust & Sharer, 1988, pp. 102-104). Refuse pits were probably located conveniently around the village. The Olmec had complex water management systems. A village along a river wo

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which humans interfere with natural selection in other species" (Hayden, 1993, pp. 215-219). The primary goal of domestication is to increase the resource yield of a particular species. In the Middle East, farming began around 9000 B.C. Wild wheat and barley were native to an area extending from the southern Levant (southern Israel and Jordan) to Iran's Zagros Mountains known as the Fertile Crescent. The progression from harvesting wild grains to intentional planting occurred simply and naturally. In addition to raising crops, people of the Middle East also began herding sheep and goats. After about 1,000 years, permanent farming communities were established. About 3,000 years after the development of agriculture in the Middle East, cultivation arose independently in Mesoamerica. These changes occurred somewhat similarly to those in the Middle East. Crops and livestock were raised to supplement hunting and gathering. However, in some areas, people became increasingly dependent on agricultural activities (Scarre, 1993, pp. 61-81). In the Olmec village discussed previously, cultivation served as an adjunct to hunting and gathering. Although the villagers grew various crops, the fields were small. Much of what the p

Category: History - A