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==Footnotes==
==Footnotes==
{{reflist}}
{{reflist}}
this page sucks donkey balls and get the fucking scientists out there to find more shit on the fucking olmec people coz i am going to fail my history report at the amount of info they havent find now they shud stop slacking of and get of there bums AND FIND SOMETHING!!!


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 06:04, 1 December 2008

San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan Colossal Head 6, a 3 meter high Olmec sculpture with lips and nose said to resemble African facial features.

Olmec alternative origin speculations are explanations that have been suggested for the formation of Olmec civilization which contradict the accepted scholarly consensus. These speculations typically involve contact with Old World societies. Although these speculations have become somewhat well-known within popular culture, particularly the idea of an African connection to the Olmec, they are not considered credible by the vast majority of Mesoamerican researchers.

African origins

See also: Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories

Some writers claim the Olmec were related to peoples of Africa based primarily on their interpretation of facial features of Olmec statues. They additionally contend that epigraphical, genetic, and osteological evidence supports their claims. The idea that the Olmecs were related to Africans was first suggested by José Melgar, who discovered the first colossal head at Hueyapan (now Tres Zapotes) in 1862 and subsequently published two papers that attributed this head to a "Negro race".[1] The view was espoused in the early 20th century by Leo Wiener and others.[2] They additionally contend that epigraphical, genetic, and osteological evidence supports their claims. Some modern proponents such as Ivan van Sertima and Clyde Ahmad Winters have identified the Olmecs with the Mandé people of West Africa.[3]

Epigraphic evidence

Some researchers claim that the Mesoamerican writing systems are related to African scripts. In the early 19th century, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque proposed that the Mayan inscriptions were probably related to the Libyco-Berber writing of Africa.[4] Leo Wiener[5] and others claim that various Olmec and Epi-Olmec symbols are similar to those found in the Vai script, in particular, the symbols on the Tuxtla Statuette, Teo Mask,[6] Cascajal Block,[7] and the celts in Offering 4 at La Venta.

These assertions have found no support among Mesoamerican researchers. While mainstream scholars have made significant progress translating the Maya script, researchers have yet to translate Olmec glyphs.

Genetic evidence

Proponents of African influence on the Olmecs claim that some genetic studies of Mexican indigenous populations support their claims,[8] although the authors of these studies typically consider any African admixture to be a post-Colonial occurrence.[citation needed]

Osteological evidence

Some researchers have seen evidence for African skeletons at prehistoric sites in Mexico. Constance Irwin and Andrez Wiercinski have both reported that skeletal remains with African characteristics have been found in Mexico. Irwin, in Fair Gods and Stone Faces, says that there are "distinct signs of Negroid ancestry in many a New World skull."[citation needed] Wiercinski claims that some of the Olmecs were of African origin.[9] He supports this claim with cranial evidence from two Mesoamerican sites: Tlatilco and Cerro de las Mesas. Tlatilco is a site in the Valley of Mexico. Although outside the Olmec heartland, Olmec influences appear in the architectural record. The crania were from the Pre-Classic period, contemporary with the Olmec. Cerro de las Mesa is within the Olmec heartland, although according to Wiercinski, "the series . . . is dated on the Classic period."[10] The Classic period is generally defined to start around AD 250, or 600 years after the end of the Olmec culture.

Site # of Crania Time Period
Tlatilco
100
Pre-Classic
Cerro de las Mesas 25 Classic


To determine the racial heritage of the skeletons, Wiercinski used classic diagnostic traits, determined by craniometric and cranioscopic methods, as well as the Polish Comparative-Morphological School skeletal reference collection. These measurements were then compared against three crania sets from Poland, Mongolia and Uganda to represent three racial categories,[11][12][13] which allowed Wiercinski to sort each skull into one or more racial categories.

In his conclusion, Wiercinski presented his findings:[14]

Racial composition: % of Tlatilco % of Cerro
Laponoid[15] 21% 32%
Armenoid[16] 18% 4.5%
Ainoid-Arctic[17] 11% 14%
Pacific 36% 45%
Equatorial - Bushmenoid 14% 4.5%

Based on his comparisons, Wiercinski found that 14% of the skeletons from Tlatilco and 4.5% of the skeletons from Cerro de las Mesas had elements of "Black" racial composition.

In the last section of his paper, Wiercinski compared the physiognomy of the skeletons to corresponding examples of Olmec sculptures and bas-reliefs on the stelas. For example, Wiercinski states that the colossal Olmec heads represent the "Dongolan" type.[18] The empirical frequencies of the Dongolan type at Tlatilco calculated by Wiercinski was 0.231, more than twice as high as Wiercinski's theoretical figure of 0.101, for the presence of Dongolans at Tlatilco.

Wiercinski summarizes his research by offering the following "ethnogenetical hypotheses":[19]

  • The indigenous rootstock of Tlatilco and Cerro de las Mesas consists of "Ainoid, Arctic, and Pacific racial elements".
  • "A next migratory wave" brought in additional Pacific as well as "Laponoid" elements.
  • "Some Chinese influence of Shang Period could penetrate Mesoamerica"
  • "A strange transatlantic, more or less sporadic migration" brought Armenoid, Equatorial, and Bushmenoid elements.

Wiercinski's research methods and conclusions are not accepted by the vast majority of Mesoamerican scholars, in part because of his reliance on the Polish Comparative-Morphological methodology.

A jade Olmec mask. Gordon Ekholm, who was an eminent archaeologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History, suggested that the Olmec art style might have originated in Bronze Age China.[20]

Chinese origins

Some researchers have argued that the Olmec civilization came into existence with the help of Chinese refugees, particularly at the end of the Shang dynasty.[21] In 1975, Betty Meggers of the Smithsonian Institution argued that the Olmec civilization originated due to Shang Chinese influences around 1200 BC.[22] In a 1996 book, Mike Xu, with the aid of Chen Hanping, claimed that the very same La Venta celts discussed above actually bore Chinese characters.[23][24] These claims are unsupported by mainstream Mesoamerican researchers.[25]

Jaredite origins

See also: Archaeology and the Book of Mormon

In the Book of Mormon, a text regarded as scripture by churches and members of the Latter Day Saint (LDS) movement, the Jaredites are described as a people who left the Old World in ancient times and founded a civilization in the Americas. A number of LDS scholars and authors have sought to demonstrate that the events recounted in the Book of Mormon have a historical and literal foundation. The most popular of the Book of Mormon limited geography models—proposals put forward by LDS sources attempting to identify where events narrated in the Book are supposed to have taken place—is one that places the scene of this arrival and subsequent development in lands around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mesoamerica.[26]

More specifically, LDS scholars and authors have at times identified the Olmec civilization with the Jaredites, citing perceived similarities in the Olmec geographical and archaeological record with descriptions found in the Book of Mormon, and noting that the period in which the Olmec flourished and later declined corresponds with their assumptions about when the relevant events mentioned in the Book must have taken place.

LDS researcher and anthropology professor John L. Sorenson is among those authors who have put forward the idea that the Olmec civilization resembles, and may be equated to, the description of the Jaredites in the Book of Mormon. Sorenson advances this idea particularly in his 1996 book, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon. Writing in an earlier 1992 article, Sorenson notes some parallels:

  • "[La Venta] was one of the great centers of Olmec civilization, whose distribution and dates remind us of Jaredite society."
  • "[Stela 3] is thought to date to about 600 B.C., or a little later, at or just after the late Olmec (Jaredite?) inhabitants abandoned the site." [27] Sorenson also asserts that the bearded "prominent man" depicted on Stela 3 (see drawing below) "appears to a number of (non-Mormon) art historians like a Jew".[28] (Famed artist and ethnographer Miguel Covarrubias also describes this figure, known by the nickname "Uncle Sam", as "strangely Semitic".[29])

Conventional Mesoamerican scholarship does not support any proposal that allows for the presence or influence of Old World cultures in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. No accepted material evidence has been found that would indicate contact between Mesoamerica and Old World cultures had ever taken place.[30] Among other criticisms levelled against the belief that the Olmec had Jaredite origins or identity, Mesoamerican archaeologists note that many of the things described in the Book of Mormon are known not to have been part of or present in Olmec culture, including iron, silk, and elephants.

Writing in the Mormon studies journal Dialogue, Yale University anthropology professor and eminent Mesoamericanist archaeologist Michael D. Coe lays out the mainstream archaeological assessment of material claims found in the Book of Mormon, as they relate to the known archaeological record of the New World. Specifically addressing the case for any ancient New World presence of the peoples and technologies described in the Book of Mormon, and whether the Olmec and other ancient Mesoamerican resemble these or bear traces of such external influences, Coe states:

There is an inherent improbability in specific items that are mentioned in the Book of Mormon as having been brought to the New World by Jaredites and/or Nephites. Among these are the horse (extinct in the New World since about 7,000 B.C.), the chariot, wheat, barley, and metallurgy (true metallurgy based upon smelting and casting being no earlier in Mesoamerica than about 800 A.D.). The picture of this hemisphere between 2,000 B.C. and A.D. 421 presented in the book has little to do with the early Indian cultures as we know them, in spite of much wishful thinking.[31]

Detail of a carved portrait—nicknamed "Uncle Sam" by researchers[32]—on a section of La Venta Stela 3. This depiction of a bearded figure possessing an apparent aquiline nose has been cited by alternative origin advocates, as evidence that the for ancient visitors to the Americas from the Old World cultures.

Nordic origins

According to Michael Coe, explorer and cultural diffusionist Thor Heyerdahl claimed at least some of the Olmec leadership had Nordic ancestry, a view at least partly inspired by the bearded figure, often referred to as "Uncle Sam" (see right), carved into La Venta Stela 3:

"The presence of Uncle Sam inspired Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer and author of ‘’Kon Tiki,’’ among others to claim a Nordic ancestry for at least some of the Olmec leadership. . . [However], it is extremely misleading to use the testimony of artistic representations to prove ethnic theories. The Olmec were American Indians, not Negroes (as Melgar had thought) or Nordic supermen."[33]

Mainstream scientific consensus

The great majority of scholars who specialise in Mesoamerican history, archaeology and linguistics remain unconvinced by these speculations.[34] Many are more critical and regard the promotion of such unfounded theories as a form of ethnocentric racism at the expense of indigenous Americans.[35] The consensus view maintained across publications in peer-reviewed academic journals that are concerned with Mesoamerican and other pre-Columbian research is that the Olmec and their achievements arose from influences and traditions that were wholly indigenous to the region, or at least the New World, and there is no reliable material evidence to suggest otherwise.[36] They, and their neighbouring cultures with whom they had contact, developed their own characters which were founded entirely on a remarkably interlinked and ancient cultural and agricultural heritage that was locally shared, but arose quite independently of any extra-hemispheric influences.[37]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Stirling, p. 2, who cites Melgar (1869) and Melgar (1871).
  2. ^ Ortíz de Montellano, Bernard & Gabriel Haslip Viera & Warren Barbour 1997
  3. ^ Ortíz de Montellano, Bernard & Gabriel Haslip Viera & Warren Barbour 1997
  4. ^ C. S. Rafinesque, "First letter to Mr. Champollion on the Graphic systems of Otolum or Palenque in Central America", in The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing, Houston, S. et al, Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press (2001), (pp. 45-47); and C. S. Rafinesque, "Second letter to Mr. Champollion--Elements of the Glyphs", ibid., pp. 48-53.
  5. ^ Leo Wiener, Africa and the Discovery of America, Volume 3, Philadelphia, PA: Innes & Sons (1922) p. 271.
  6. ^ TeoMaskNgbe
  7. ^ Hi Ssathia
  8. ^ *Afrocentrist writer Clyde A. Winters' website
  9. ^ Rensberger, B. (September, 1988). "Black kings of ancient America", Science Digest, 74-77 and 122. See also Wiercinski, A. (1972a) "An anthropological study on the origin of 'Olmecs'", Swiatowit, 33, p. 143-174.
  10. ^ Wiercinski (1972b).
  11. ^ Keita (1993,1996); Keita, S.O.Y. (1993). Studies and comments on ancient Egyptian biological relationships, History in Africa, 20, 129-131; Keita,S.O.Y.& Kittles,R.A. (1997). The persistence of racial thinking and the myth of racial divergence, American Anthropologist, 99 (3), 534-544.
  12. ^ Carlson,D. and Van Gerven,D.P. (1979). Diffussion, biological determinism and bioculdtural adaptation in the Nubian corridor,American Anthropologist, 81, 561-580.
  13. ^ MacGaffey,W.(1970). Concepts of race in Northeast Africa. In J.D. Fage and R.A. Oliver, Papers in African Prehistory (pp.99-115), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  14. ^ P. 156.
  15. ^ "Laponoid" refers to those from Lapland, or in more general terms northern Europeans.
  16. ^ Wiercinski states that the engraving of the bearded man on La Venta Stela 3 (see Olmecs as Nordics) is a "representative of Armenoid" (p. 163).
  17. ^ "Ainoid" refers to the Ainu while Arctic refers to the general Siberian population.
  18. ^ Wiercinski (1972b), p.160
  19. ^ Wiercinski, p. 158 or p. 171.
  20. ^ Pool, p. 92, who cites Gordon Ekholm (1964) "Transpacific Contacts" in Prehistoric Man in the New World JD Jennings and E. Norbeck, eds., Chicago: University of Chicago, pp. 489—510.
  21. ^ This theory is mentioned in the history book The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963) by William H. McNeill
  22. ^ Meggers.
  23. ^ Xu, Origin of the Olmec civilization.
  24. ^ Dr. Mike Xu's Transpacific website, comparing Olmec and Chinese Shang period artifacts.
  25. ^ See for example Grove (1976).
  26. ^ Southerton (2004, p.157)
  27. ^ Sorenson (1992).
  28. ^ Sorenson (1992).
  29. ^ Covarrubias, p. 96.
  30. ^ See Taube (2004, p.17).
  31. ^ Quote is from Coe (1973, pp.40–48); see also as reproduced in Wolverton (2004, pp.88–89), with accompanying further context and commentary.
  32. ^ see Coe (1963, p.59).
  33. ^ Coe. p. 55
  34. ^ See Grove (1976) or Ortiz de Montellano (1997).
  35. ^ *Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs an article from Current Anthropology.
  36. ^ Taube, p. 17. "There simply is no material evidence of any Pre-Hispanic contact between the Old World and Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century."
  37. ^ Diehl (2004); Coe (1968).

References

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Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo (1972). La población negra de México: Estudio etnohistórico (2nd edition, with corrections and expansions ed.). México D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica. OCLC 781507. {{cite book}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) Template:Es icon
Alchina-France, J. (1985). Los origenes de America, Madrid: Editorial Alhambra.
Bernal, Ignacio (1968). "Views of Olmec Culture". In Elizabeth P. Benson (Ed.) (ed.). Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec, October 28th and 29th, 1967 (PDF). Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. pp. pp.135-142. OCLC 52523439. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Coe, Michael D. (1968). America's First Civilization. Richard B. Woodbury (consultant). New York: American Heritage, in association with the Smithsonian Institution; distributed by Van Nostrand (Princeton, NJ). OCLC 451758.
Coe, Michael D. (1973). "Mormons and Archaeology: An Outside View". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 8 (2). Stanford, CA: Dialogue Foundation: pp.40–48. ISSN 0012-2157. OCLC 197923057. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
Coe, Michael D. (1994). Mexico: from the Olmecs to the Aztecs (4th edition, revised and enlarged ed.). London and New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27722-2. OCLC 29708907. {{cite book}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Covarrubias, Miguel (1986) [1946]. Mexico South: The Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Reprint, Originally published New York: Knopf ©1946 ed.). London: KPI (Kegan Paul International), distributed by Routledge & Kegan Paul, by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-7103-0184-7. OCLC 14069879. {{cite book}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Cuevas, Marco P. Hernadez (2004). African Mexicans and the discourse on Modern Mexico. University Press, Oxford.
Diehl, Richard (2004). The Olmecs: America's First Civilization. Ancient peoples and places series. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-02119-8. OCLC 56746987. {{cite book}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Green, L.D., (2000), "Mitochondrial DNA affinities of the people of North-Central Mexico", American Journal of Human Genetics, 66:989-998.
Grove, David C. (1976). "Olmec Origins and Transpacific Diffusion: Reply to Meggers" (JSTOR reproduction). American Anthropologist, New Series. 78 (3). Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association and affiliated societies: pp.634–637. ISSN 0002-7294. OCLC 1479294. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Gutherie, J. (1996). The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership. Princeton University: University of Princeton Press.
MacLachlan, C.M. & Rodriguez O, J.E., The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico, University of California Press (1980)
Marquez, C. (1956). Estudios arqueologicas y ethnograficas. Mexico.
Meggers, Betty J. (1975). "The Transpacific Origin of Mesoamerican Civilization: A Preliminary Review of the Evidence and Its Theoretical Implications" (JSTOR reproduction). American Anthropologist, New Series. 77 (1). Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association and affiliated societies: pp.1–27. ISSN 0002-7294. OCLC 1479294. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Melgar, Jose (1869) "Antigüedades mexicanas, notable escultura antigua", in Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística, época 2, vol. 1, pp. 292-297, Mexico.
Melgar, Jose (1871) "Estudio sobre la antigüedad y el origen de la Cabeza Colosal de tipo etiópico que existe en Hueyapan del cantón de los Tuxtlas" in Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística, época 2, vol. 3, pp. 104-109; Mexico.
Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard (1997). "They Were NOT Here before Columbus: Afrocentric Hyperdiffusionism in the 1990s". Ethnohistory. 44 (2). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, issued by the American Society for Ethnohistory: pp.199–234. ISSN 0014-1801. OCLC 42388116. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |coauthors= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Pool, Christopher A. (2007). Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica. Cambridge World Archaeology. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-78882-3. OCLC 68965709. {{cite book}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Rensberger, B. ( September, 1988). "Black kings of ancient America", Science Digest, 74-77 and 122.
Salas, Antonio; Richards, Martin; Lareu, María-Victoria; Scozzari, Rosaria; Coppa, Alfredo; Torroni, Antonio; Macaulay, Vincent; Carracedo, Ángel (2004) "The African Diaspora: Mitochondrial DNA and the Atlantic Slave Trade", American Journal of Human Genetics; March 2004; 74(3): p. 454–465.
Sorenson, John L. (1992). When Lehi's Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Others There?. Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Retrieved April 2007. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Southerton, Simon G. (2004). Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church. Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books. ISBN 1-56085-181-3. OCLC 55534917. {{cite book}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Stirling, Matthew W. (1968). Elizabeth P. Benson (ed.) (ed.). Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec, October 28th and 29th, 1967 (PDF online reproduction). Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. pp. pp.1-8. OCLC 52523439. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Taube, Karl (2004). Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks (PDF online reproduction). Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks, no. 2. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection; Trustees of Harvard University. ISBN 0-884-02275-7. OCLC 56096117. {{cite book}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Underhill, P.A., Jin, L., Zemans, R., Oefner, J. and Cavalli-Sforza, L.L.(1996, January). "A pre-Columbian Y chromosome-specific transition and its implications for human evolutionary history", Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, 93, p. 196-200.
Van Sertima, Ivan (1976). They came before Columbus. New York.
Wiercinski, A. (1971), "Affinidades raciales de algunas poblaiones antiquas de Mexico", Anales de Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 7a epoca, tomo II, pp. 123-143.
Wiercinski,A. (1972). "Inter- and Intrapopulational Racial Differentiation of Tlatilco, Cerro de Las Mesas, Teothuacan, Monte Alban and Yucatan Maya", XXXlX Congreso Intern. de Americanistas, Lima 1970, Vol. 1, p. 231-252.
Wiercinski,A. (1972b). "An anthropological study on the origin of 'Olmecs'", Swiatowit, 33:1972, pp. 143-174.
Wiercinski, A. & Jairazbhoy, R.A. (1975) "Comment", The New Diffusionist, 5 (18),5
Wilford, John Noble; Mother Culture, or Only a Sister?, The New York Times, March 15, 2005.
Winters, C. (1997) "The Decipherment of the Olmec Writing System", 1997 Central States Anthropological Society Meeting.
Wolverton, Susan Stansfield (2004). Having visions: The Book of Mormon Translated and Exposed in Plain English. New York: Algora. ISBN 0-87586-308-6. OCLC 54806382. {{cite book}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |author= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Xu, H. Mike (1996) Origin of the Olmec Civilization, University of Central Oklahoma Press.

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