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.