Olmec crayfish farming

Abstract

The Olmecs of Early and Middle Formative times were responsible for constructing the earliest civilization in Mesoamerica. They influenced later Mesoamerican civilizations in ways that can be seen in iconography, calendrics, epigraphy, town planning, architecture, and loan words, as well as in myriad ways that are not so easily traceable. Major sites, such as San Lorenzo, La Venta, Laguna de los Cerros, Chalcatzingo, and Teopantecuanitlan were actively occupied for varying periods between approximately 1400 and 300 B.C. Although Teopantecuanitlan is located in Guerrero and Chalcatzingo is in Morelos, what is known as the Olmec heartland is focused on the northern part of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in southern Veracruz and western Tabasco (Fig. 1). Olmecs are believed by some scholars to have spoken a Mayan language. Others, basing their opinions on language distribution, loan words, and physical types in local populations, think that the Olmecs spoke a Mixe-Zoquean language.