Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures

This debate is succinctly, if simplistically, framed by the title of a 2005 The New York Times article: “Mother Culture, or Only a Sister?”.

To quote perhaps the most prominent of Mesoamerican archaeologists, Michael D. Coe, "There is now little doubt that all later civilizations in Mesoamerica, whether Mexican or Maya, ultimately rest on an Olmec base.

Major proponents of this theory include Joyce Marcus and Kent V. Flannery, who argue that the Olmec were merely the first among equals, rather than the wellspring of cultural change.

[11] This viewpoint is echoed by a minority of other researchers including art historian Caterina Magni who nonetheless agrees that the Olmecs bequeathed a rich heritage to later cultures.

This study used petrography to analyze 20 pottery shards, and found that five of the samples from San Lorenzo were "unambiguously" from Oaxaca.

Based on this evidence, the authors concluded that the "exchanges of vessels between highland and lowland chiefly centers were reciprocal, or two way" which "contradicts recent claims that the Gulf Coast was the sole source of pottery" in Mesoamerica.

[20] No stelae have been found extolling rulers' victories, unlike the later Maya or the contemporaneous Egyptian or Hittite cultures.

The archaeological records of Olmec-influenced sites show that each had pre-Olmec occupations as well as a significant number of indigenous artifacts created in a local tradition.

The fact that trade involves ceramic vessels which display iconography, representing an underlying ideology and religion synthesized by the Gulf Coast Olmec, suggests that something much deeper is at stake than simply maintaining exchange relationships.

"[22] To explain the adoption of Olmec iconography and concepts throughout Mesoamerica, archaeologist F. Kent Reilly proposes a "Middle Form rulers.