Rubber people carved colossal heads in Gulf Coast swamps
Olmec civilization flourished in Veracruz and Tabasco roughly 1200–400 BC, a Mesoamerican cradle first centered at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán then La Venta. Aztec-era Nahuatl called Gulf neighbors rubber people—ōlli plus -mēcatl—after latex mixed with Ipomoea alba juice for ballgame spheres since about 1600 BC.
Olmecs appear to have practiced ritual bloodletting and the Mesoamerican ballgame, patterns later cultures shared. Their trademark art is the colossal stone head; collectors defined the culture from market pieces in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Self-names are unknown; later accounts may say Tamoanchan, and tenocelome (jaguar mouth) is a modern label.
The heartland is swampy Gulf lowlands with Tuxtlas volcanoes rising northward. Permanent city-temple complexes rose at San Lorenzo, La Venta, Tres Zapotes, and Laguna de los Cerros after earlier growth near Soconusco. Pre-Olmec societies existed from about 2500 BC; beginnings are traditionally set 1400–1200 BC, with ritual deposits at El Manatí pushing dates earlier.
As a formative template—ballcourts, blood offerings, monumental portraiture—the Olmecs left a toolkit later Maya and highland states would remix, even though we still do not know what they called themselves.
San Lorenzo, where the full Olmec style emerged around 1400 BC on well-watered river soils, was largely abandoned about 900 BC, after many of its monuments were smashed in the 950s BC, perhaps in an internal revolt. La Venta then led from 900 BC until roughly 400 BC; its Great Pyramid, the biggest Mesoamerican building of its day, still stands 34 metres high, and buried offerings there include 1000 tons of serpentine blocks. Between 400 and 350 BC the eastern heartland emptied and stayed thinly settled until the nineteenth century, and one theory blames volcanic eruptions that forced people to relocate. The art ranges from naturalistic pieces such as The Wrestler to fantastical beings, and the colossal heads reach 3 metres tall.
Source: Olmecs
