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COMPLEXITY, INTERACTION, AND EPISTEMOLOGY: MIXTECS, ZAPOTECS,
AND OLMECS IN EARLY FORMATIVE MESOAMERICA
Jeffrey P. Blomster
Ancient Mesoamerica / Volume 21 / Issue 01 / March 2010, pp 135 - 149DOI: 10.1017/S0956536110000039, Published online: 22 September 2010
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0956536110000039
How to cite this article:
Jeffrey P. Blomster (2010). COMPLEXITY, INTERACTION, AND EPISTEMOLOGY: MIXTECS, ZAPOTECS, AND OLMECS INEARLY FORMATIVE MESOAMERICA. Ancient Mesoamerica, 21, pp 135-149 doi:10.1017/S0956536110000039
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COMPLEXITY, INTERACTION, AND EPISTEMOLOGY:
MIXTECS, ZAPOTECS, AND OLMECS IN EARLY
FORMATIVE MESOAMERICA
Jeffrey P. Blomster
Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, 2110 G. St., NW, Washington, DC 20052
Abstract
Interaction between the Gulf Coast Olmecs and various regions of Early Formative Mesoamerica remains debated and poorly understood.
In Oaxaca, models have been dominated by neoevolutionary epistemology; interaction between the Valley of Oaxaca and San Lorenzo has
been characterized by emulation or peer polity models. Data from the Valley of Oaxaca, the Nochixtlán Valley, and the Gulf Coast
demonstrate that San Lorenzo was at a different level of sociopolitical complexity than its contemporaries. Previous comparisons betweenOlmec-style pottery in the Gulf Coast and Valley of Oaxaca are found to be problematic, and have led to the impression that Oaxaca
villagers produced more of this pottery than did the Olmecs. Neutron activation analysis demonstrates the Gulf Coast Olmecs exported
ceramics to Mixtecs and Zapotecs in Oaxaca, while receiving few if any pots in return, suggesting that new models and theoretical
perspectives must be applied to understanding the relationships between Oaxacan chiefdoms and the nascent Olmec state at San Lorenzo.
An agency perspective explores what Mixtec, Zapotec, and Olmec groups may have taken from these interactions and relationships and
acknowledges both local and Gulf Coast understandings of “Olmec.” Such relationshipsmay be characterized more by acquisition between
regions, with San Lorenzo as a superordinate center.
Crucial transformations of power relations and sociopolitical
organization emerged across Early Formative Mesoamerica. Rank
societies developed in areas formerly characterized by small auton-
omous villages. Autonomy both within and between villages eroded
as defined leadership roles materialized within larger villages;
regional site hierarchies, elite culture, and aspects of ideologyappear in the archaeological record. The largest and most complex
of these societies developed on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, the
Olmecs. The emergence of more sociopolitically complex societies
during the Early Formative period across Mesoamerica correlates
with transformations in exchange and interaction, on both local and
interregional levels. Beginning by 1150 b.c. (uncal), select sites
across Mesoamerica display distinctive ceramic vessels that share a
common symbolism and iconography. Unlike earlier shared styles,
such as the preceding “red-on-buff ” ceramics that occur throughout
much of the highlands of Mexico (Winter 1984, 1994), the ceramic
vessels display a consistent and complex iconography that often con-
trasts with local pottery traditions, occurring on certain types of cer-
amics or with specific vessel forms. These ceramics, often referred to
as “Olmec-style” or “Olmec pottery,” exhibit symbols that may rep-resent iconic elements of developing religious beliefs and cosmol-
ogy. While fundamental principles of this emergent religion and
cosmology existed in Mesoamerica prior to 1150 b.c., Olmec monu-
mental art and portable objects synthesized and abstracted these con-
cepts on durable material. Interaction with the Gulf Coast Olmecs,
and local understandings of the Olmec style, remain deeply contested
topics and are the subjects of this paper.
The nature of these widespread symbols and the implications in
terms of interaction represented by the use of this common icono-
graphy during the so-called San Lorenzo (or Early) horizon, from
1150–850 b.c., remain poorly understood. Entwined in elucidating
the nature of the San Lorenzo horizon across Mesoamerica are two
major issues: the comparative sociopolitical complexity betweencontemporaneous Early Formative period Mesoamerican societies
and what materials if any were actually exchanged as part of this
interaction. Understanding the nature of San Lorenzo horizon inter-
action impacts both larger issues of interregional interaction as well
as the rise of societies more complex than the early (circa 1400 b.c.)
Mokaya chiefdoms of Soconusco (Clark and Pye 2000).
To explore these issues, I focus on three contemporaneous
societies: the Olmecs of San Lorenzo, Veracruz; the Mixtecs of the
Nochixtlán Valley; and the Zapotecs of the Valley of Oaxaca —the
latter two groups both in the modern Mexican state of Oaxaca
(Figure 1). In terms of the Olmecs, I focus on San Lorenzo; but
recent research—such as that reported by Pool et al. (2010) on the
Early Formative period at Tres Zapotes—suggests that several con-
temporaneous Early Formative Olmec polities existed withinOlman (“the land of the Olmecs” of eastern Veracruz and western
Tabasco), each potentially engaging in different networks of
interaction within and outside of the Gulf Coast. In addition to
comparative political organization, I explore the Olmec-style cer-
amics each region produced, what materials may have moved
between these regions, and the differing impacts of interregional
interaction on early ranked societies. I also examine epistemology
and methodology and how classifications have been used and
abused in previous comparisons of pottery between Oaxaca and
the Gulf Coast. I discuss material from three contemporaneous
135
E-mail correspondence to: [email protected]
Ancient Mesoamerica, 21 (2010), 135–149Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2010doi:10.1017/S0956536110000039
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ceramic phases during the San Lorenzo horizon: the San Lorenzo
phase, the San José phase in the Valley of Oaxaca, and the Cruz B
phase in the Nochixtlán Valley.
As a caveat, I note the term “Olmec style”—initially developed
based on objects in museum collections before the exploration of the
archaeological Olmec culture—has often been applied uncritically
to many artifact categories that may have nothing to do with the
Gulf Coast Olmecs (Blomster 2002; Grove 1996). A more robust definition of the Olmec style must be applied to specific artifact
types in order to determine if any connection existed in conception
or execution with the material culture of the Gulf Coast Olmec. By
applying a definition of Olmec style based on Gulf Coast materials
to one such object category—so-called “hollow baby” figurines—it
was possible to purge the literature of many figurines that bore no
resemblance to the Olmec style, which clarifies where and in
what frequencies these objects actually occur (Blomster 1998b,
2002). Furthermore, Olmec style objects should not be assumed
to have been produced on the Gulf Coast, but rather may be regional
variants of this style. Such assertions should be supported by com-
positional data, which has recently been applied to San Lorenzo
horizon ceramics (see below).
COMPARATIVE SOCIOPOLITICAL ORGANIZATION
IN EARLY FORMATIVE MESOAMERICA
By 1150 b.c., rank societies or chiefdoms appeared in Oaxaca, with
major centers, San José Mogote in the Valley of Oaxaca and
Etlatongo in the Nochixtlán Valley, positioned atop two-tier site
hierarchies in their respective valleys. An additional important
Oaxacan Early Formative period center with Olmec-style materials
is located near the Pacific Coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec—the
site of Laguna Zope (Zeitlin and Zeitlin 1993). In the Etla branch of
the Valley of Oaxaca, where most small villages (such as Tierras
Largas) covered only 2 to 5 ha, the village of San José Mogote
had a 20-ha core area of public structures and higher status houses
that contrasted slightly with the majority of houses in terms of
quality of construction and plaster, as well as the presence of an out-
building or ramada. Inclusion of outlying barrios would extend San
José Mogote’s size to 60 to 70 ha but this maximum extent does not
represent continuous occupation (Marcus and Flannery 1996:106).In addition to slight differences in house construction, higher-status
individuals at San José Mogote are associated archaeologically with
better access to deer meat, magnetite mirrors, imported ceramics,
marine shell, and jade. Higher-status individuals may also have
organized some craft production, such as magnetite mirrors, with
one group of families controlling mirror-polishing (Marcus and
Flannery 1996:103; Winter 1994).
In the Nochixtlán Valley, Etlatongo’s own core area grew to
approximately 26 ha during the Cruz B phase, with some evidence
of outlying barrios that could extend the size of the site similar to
that of San José Mogote and its barrios (see above); in both cases,
however, I prefer the figure for the main village, not adding outlying
settlements not necessarily connected with the main sites. No
primary evidence of a substantial pre-Cruz B occupation has been
recovered (Blomster 1998a, 2004; Zárate Morán 1987); however,
scattered earlier materials suggest the presence of a small hamlet
at this location prior to the Cruz B phase. Excavations through
both test units and larger horizontal exposures at Etlatongo revealed
that some higher status individuals lived in houses on small plat-
forms (generally less than half a meter), made up of redeposited
middens and fill, elevating them above surrounding houses; at
least one such house may have had decorated interior plaster.
Such individuals also had access to large storage facilities, more
exotic and imported goods and displayed relatively large items of
Figure 1. Location of the Valleys of Oaxaca and Nochixtlán in Early Formative period Mesoamerica, with sites indicated that are
mentioned in the text.
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ritual paraphernalia (Blomster 1998b, 2004). One area of probable
public space has also been defined in the southern portion of the
site, a mound elevated by depositing construction fill, in one case
with a disproportionately large amount of figurine fragments.
The location of San Lorenzo, on an artificially modified salt
dome above the surrounding floodplain, allowed control of river
transportation networks. Before 1150 b.c., San Lorenzo was
similar to what the Oaxacan chiefdoms would become during the
San Lorenzo horizon, a roughly 20-ha site atop a two-tier settlement hierarchy (Symonds et al. 2002:56). By 1150 b.c., San Lorenzo
grew to nearly 700 ha, dwarfing all contemporaneous settlements
in Mesoamerica (Cyphers and Di Castro 2009:23). The San
Lorenzo Tenochtitlan Archaeological Project (SLTAP) has docu-
mented at least a three-tier “central place” hierarchy dominated by
San Lorenzo, which housed 40% of the region’s population (see
Symonds et al. 2002: 124, 126); the hierarchy would be four-tier
if smaller villages and hamlets which would have had no adminis-
trative functions are included. In other parts of Mesoamerica, such a
settlement hierarchy would generally be consistent with state-level
political organization, as clear control and administration over the
San Lorenzo hinterland are indicated (Clark 2007). San Lorenzo’s
builders organized internal urban space to delimit zones of public
space as well as residential areas, with a massive ramp connectingSan Lorenzo to a dock associated with one of the rivers that sur-
rounded the site (Cyphers 1997). In terms of social organization,
San Lorenzo elites controlled a basalt workshop and lived in what
the SLTAP (Cyphers 1997) refers to as the “Red Palace,” estimated
to cover some 400 m 2.
Recent data from Olman and Oaxaca indicate substantial differ-
ences in sociopolitical organization. The ability of Olmec leaders
to commission the first monumental art in Mesoamerica in the
form of multiton portraiture (the famous colossal heads) and
“altars” or thrones attests to a magnitude of power greater than any-
where else in contemporaneous Mesoamerica. Throughout Early
Formative Oaxaca, status differences clearly lay along a continuum,
without the displays of personal power and regional settlement inte-
gration noted for San Lorenzo. SLTAP archaeologists have referredto San Lorenzo as the center of an incipient state (Symonds 2000),
while John Clark (2007:42) refers to San Lorenzo as Mesoamerica ’s
first and only pristine state, based on both its four-tier regional
settlement pattern and evidence of foreign hegemony at Cantón
Corralito in the Mazatan region, both of which are indicators of
the state at the later Valley of Oaxaca Zapotec center of Monte
Albán. The political classification of San Lorenzo reveals the
limitations in underlying epistemologies, as it invokes problematic
neoevolutionary stages and typologies (see Yoffee 2005), with
the result being for some scholars the flawed assertion that
if the San Lorenzo Olmec can be placed into the same general
“chiefdom ” category as other contemporaneous societies, even as
a more “complex” chiefdom, it could not have had an impact on
them (Flannery and Marcus 2000). Current evidence indicates that
whatever classification scheme we deploy, the San Lorenzo Olmec
were sociopolitically more complexly organized than their contem-
poraneous Early Formative neighbors throughout Mesoamerica.
WHAT MATERIALS EXHIBIT OLMEC STYLE IN EARLY
FORMATIVE PERIOD MESOAMERICA?
Gulf Coast Olmec art includes naturalistic images often combined
with iconography that abstracted important concepts of Olmec reli-
gion and cosmology (Coe 1965; de la Fuente 1992). In terms of
objects that show Olmec style and iconography, in Oaxaca these
are confined to ceramic objects—pottery vessels and figurines.
The consistency in representation and the particular use of images
in the Olmec style at select sites throughout Mesoamerica suggests
the presence of a symbolic code that reinforced social and cosmolo-
gical structures, beliefs, and values—a not uncommon feature of
pottery decoration (Rice 1987:251). Although some researchers
(Grove 2007:222) seize on the apparent absence of monumental
art in regions such as Oaxaca as evidence for a lack of Gulf Coast influence, such an observation ignores the sociopolitical context
of Oaxacan ranked societies and the complex and nuanced nature
of San Lorenzo horizon interregional relationships, which do not
signify Olmec political or economic domination in Oaxaca. As
opposed to the sociopolitically more complex Olmec center of
San Lorenzo, monumental stone sculpture was simply not a
feature of early Oaxacan ranked societies. Indeed, multi-ton por-
traits of rulers, such as the Olmec colossal heads of San Lorenzo,
are not artifacts normally associated with ranked societies.
Although a fired clay paw, approximately life-size and part of
a larger sculpture, was found at Etlatongo (Blomster 2004:
Figure 8.2), both the paw, and slightly later bas-relief sculptures
from San José Mogote (Monuments 1 and 2; see Marcus and
Flannery 1996:Figure114), all reflect supernatural imagery—not portraits of leaders. With some possible examples in the Mazatan
region (see Clark and Pye 2000), monumental art does not appear
outside of Olman until the following La Venta horizon. Instead,
Olmec-style imagery appeared on portable objects, which could
be easily imported and locally imitated.
Generally in Oaxaca there are both objects that exhibit the Olmec
style as defined for Gulf Coast monuments and ceramics and others
that only approximate this style; the distinction between these two is
important and may be supported by compositional data. While I
focus here on ceramic vessels, solid Olmec-style figurines have
been found in both the Valley of Oaxaca and the Nochixtlán
Valley. In addition to solid figurines, so-called “hollow baby” figur-
ines (what I have referred to as Group 1) exhibit the Olmec style,
while Group 2 hollow figurines are local reinterpretations(Blomster 2002). While none of the published hollow examples
from the Valley of Oaxaca (Marcus 1998) correspond with a
robust definition of Olmec-style, Group 1 figurines—both fragmen-
tary and nearly intact —have been found at Etlatongo, although they
are outnumbered by Group 2 figurines (Figure 2). While Flannery
and Marcus (1994:386) claim that hollow babies are a central
Mexican phenomenon rather than associated with Olman, they are
incorrect, as their interpretation is based on counting the many
looted hollow figurines—some of them in Olmec style, some of
them not (thus the importance of carefully defining Olmec style)—
reportedly from sites such as Tlatilco, Tlapacoya-Zohapilco, and
Las Bocas (Blomster 2002). Their model is also flawed by being
overly focused on intact objects, ignoring the archetypal Olmec-
style examples of hollow baby head fragments excavated at San
Lorenzo (Coe and Diehl 1980:267). In terms of the origins of the
Olmec style applied to the human form, solid figurines in this style
first appeared at San Lorenzo before the time of the San Lorenzo
horizon, during the Chicharras phase (Coe and Diehl 1980:263).
San Lorenzo Pottery
Some ceramic types associated with the San Lorenzo horizon actu-
ally first appear in the earlier Chicharras phase (1250–1150 b.c.) at
San Lorenzo, including several of the white paste ceramics, such as
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Xochiltepec White, as well as white-slipped ceramics, such as La
Mina White, with its distinctive orange to red paste (Coe and
Diehl 1980:150–159). Two types of differentially firedblack-on-white pottery also appear in the Chicharras phase.
Iconographic elements that may represent earth and sky, such as
volutes and fine incising similar to decoration on later Limón
Incised pottery, occur in the Bajió phase (1350–1250 b.c.) on
ceramic vessels, before their appearance on monumental art (Di
Castro and Cyphers 2006:52).
The sculptural nature of Olmec-style art is fully expressed in San
Lorenzo phase pottery, in which one of the important types,
Calzadas Carved (Fig. 3a, b), features excised designs and
symbols, some of which appear on monumental Olmec art, such
as Loma del Zapote Monument 2 (Cyphers 2004:235–237). Di
Castro and Cyphers (2006:34–35) have recently defined four
basic designs and associated compositions at San Lorenzo, the
first three of which consist of symmetrical designs, elements of which may be combined for the fourth (asymmetrical compositions
of fantastic creatures). Individual motifs on Calzadas Carved
pottery, which may combine excision and incision, include: star-
burst, “ jaguar-dragon-paw-wing,” crossed bands/St. Andrew’s
cross, cross-hachure, brackets and upside down U-shaped lines,
some of which combine to form a profile view of a creature with
flaming eyebrows (Coe and Diehl 1980:162–171). These designs
appear mostly to represent a creature often referred to as a “fire-
serpent ” or dragon rather than the cleft-headed “were-jaguar ” so
prevalent on monumental architecture (Stark 2007:53), although
these may be profile and frontal views of the same creature, as
shown on a pot from central Mexico (Blomster 2004; Winter
1994). Potters executed the majority of Calzadas Carved designs
on the exterior of bowls, where they are oriented either horizontally
or vertically, although a small amount are oriented diagonally.
In addition to Calzadas Carved, Xochiltepec White and La Mina
White pottery, the San Lorenzo phase includes other types found
elsewhere in Mesoamerica: Limón Incised (Figure 3c), which has
a variety of incised designs, but are often curvilinear and diagonal
lines combined with opposed volutes, curved brackets, and/or
other motifs (Coe and Diehl 1980:171), and Conejo
Orange-on-White (Figure 3d), essentially the same paste as
Xochiltepec White but with an orange slip on the surface through
which decorations may be incised and/or excised (Coe and Diehl
1980:179). While a variety of designs can be included under
Limón Incised,I use thisterm here solely forcurvilinearand diagonal
lines that may be associated with opposed volutes or curved arches/
brackets. Both Calzadas Carved and Xochiltepec White have been
identified as evidence of Olmec-style artifacts at sites throughout
Mesoamerica, Limón Incised and Conejo Orange-on-White,
however, are extremely rare and restricted in their distribution.
Pottery in the Valley of Oaxaca and the Nochixtlán Valley
Pottery forms and types increased around 1150 b.c. in the Valley of
Oaxaca, with red, white, yellow, and pink slip colors appearing
(Flannery and Marcus 1994; Winter 1994). Black-on-white
pottery, white or white-slipped vessels with contrasting zones of
black, through fire-clouding and/or reduction, occur as well—at
least 100 years after such pottery was produced during the
Chicharras phase at San Lorenzo. Gray ware pottery vessels, some-
times fired in a reducing atmosphere or smudged, and occasionally
slipped, also make their first appearance, as do vessels made of
white paste, visually similar to Xochiltepec White. Flat-based
conical and cylindrical bowls become frequent and are the most
Figure 3. Pottery types defined at San Lorenzo: (a) and (b) Calzadas Carved,
(c) Limón Incised, and (d) Conejo Orange-on-White. Sherds not at samescale. Redrawn from Coe and Diehl 1980:Figures 138g, i; 144i; 150e.
Figure 2. Hollow figurine face fragments recovered during excavations at
Etlatongo. The top two are Olmec-style, or Group 1, while the bottom
three are Group 2—local reinterpretations of Group 1.
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common setting for both local and Olmec-style designs. Some San
José phase motifs appear to be purely local Valley of Oaxaca
designs and include large shapes with hachure, nested triangles
(usually with only two lines; see Flannery and Marcus 1994:
Figure 12.15), zoned designs, and paired jabs. Olmec-style designs
usually are expressed as free-standing abstractions of a composite
zoomorphic being(s) and include elements such as flame eyebrows,
U-shapes/brackets (that may represent gums), the St. Andrew’s
cross, music brackets, cleft-related elements, and other excisedbands, organized in various configurations (Flannery and Marcus
1994:135–149). Designs are oriented diagonally or horizontally
and usually placed on the outside of bowls (Figure 4) but may
also be found on the interior.
Similar changes and expansion in the ceramic assemblage occur
as well in the Cruz B phase of the Nochixtlán Valley (Blomster
2004). The vast majority of pottery consists of a coarse brown
paste. Unrestricted vessels are almost invariably slipped with
colors, sometimes modified by firing—including white, red,
brown, orange, gray, and black. As with the Valley of Oaxaca and
Gulf Coast, differential firing is used to achieve contrasting zones
of white/yellow and gray/black. A finer brown paste (“café
fino”) is used almost exclusively for bowls that feature an orange
slip burnished to achieve a waxy surface; while rarely decorated,some examples have a starburst design on the interior base, which
is one element that distinguishes Etlatongo vessels from contem-
poraneous Valley of Oaxaca pots. Gray ware vessels, some of
which were fired in a reducing atmosphere, also first appear
during the Cruz B phase and may be differentially fired to
produce a white band on the vessel’s rim (Figure 5).
Along with local decorations, a small amount of vessels at
Etlatongo exhibit Olmec-style designs, where they appear on gray
ware vessels and coarse café pots, only rarely occurring on café
fino pots (see Figure 6). Olmec-style designs, expressed in both sym-
metrical and free-standing asymmetrical compositions, include
crossed bands/St. Andrew’s crosses, U-shapes and brackets, piano
keys, L-shaped excised and incised lines, wavy “flame” lines, star-
bursts, and other designs that could be elements of “paws”or “flame eyebrows” both similar to and different from examples
in the Gulf Coast and Valley of Oaxaca. At Etlatongo, designs are
usually excised or incised on the exterior of cylindrical (and
occasionally conical) bowls. Only rarely do designs appear on the
interior of conical bowls; interior placement appears to be more
common in the Valley of Oaxaca. Olmec-style motifs appear on
these vessel either horizontally or diagonally placed (Figure 6);
vertical orientations appear confined to large motifs and cover less
of the surface of the pot, not the typical composite design of
Calzadas Carved that wraps around much of the vessel.
A fundamental difference between Olmec-style pottery in the
Nochixtlán Valley and in the Valley of Oaxaca is the appearance
at Etlatongo of crossed bands, arranged symmetrically in horizontal
bands, similar to the first composition defined for San Lorenzo by
Di Castro and Cyphers (2006:34); while an “X” or crossed bands
is Motif 7 in the Valley of Oaxaca, a symmetrical composition
solely of crossed bands has not been illustrated for the Valley of
Figure 4. Delfina Gray bowl, with diagonal “fire-serpent” carved design
(filled with red pigment) found at San José Mogote but imported, as
shown through INAA, from San Lorenzo (MURR sample SLN287). See
drawing in Flannery and Marcus 1994:Figure 146b.
Figure 5. Differentially fired gray ware pottery from Etlatongo with white
interior rims.
Figure 6. Examples of Olmec-style exterior carved designs from Etlatongo:
(a) horizontal design on a red-slipped bowl; (b) diagonal designs on gray
ware bowls; (c) combination of diagonal and horizontal elements on a
gray ware cylindrical bowl, shown by INAA (MURR sample BLM003) as
a San Lorenzo import.
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Oaxaca, except for some “cross-hatching” on a spouted tray from
San José Mogote (Flannery and Marcus 1994:Figure 12.71).
Valley of Oaxaca pottery may exhibit large, bounded areas of
hachure, often identified with the “were-jaguar ” or “earth”
designs, that appear to be virtually absent at Etlatongo. Bounded
hachure appears to be a Valley of Oaxaca innovation, incorporated
both into local expressions of Olmec-style compositions and purely
local designs. Indeed, the presence of such a design on one cylind-
rical bowl fragment at Etlatongo is suggestive of a Valley of Oaxaca origin, although INAA on this sherd was not conclusive (Blomster
2009). In terms of the problematic dichotomy between fire-serpent
and were-jaguar concepts discussed below for the Valley of Oaxaca,
it does appear that the majority of Olmec-style designs at Etlatongo
fall within the fire-serpent /dragon category; were-jaguar imagery,
usually incised, appears on café fino vessels, which are rarely a
medium for Olmec symbols.
In addition to other potentially Olmec-related types of pottery
(Xochiltepec White and La Mina White) found in the Valley of
Oaxaca, two types of pottery defined at San Lorenzo are present
at Etlatongo but virtually absent in the Valley of Oaxaca: Conejo
Orange-on-White (Figure 7) and Limón Incised (Figure 8).
Indeed, despite the larger Valley of Oaxaca sample, only one defini-
tive example of what I define as Limón Incised (see above) has beenpublished, included with a burial at Tomaltepec (Whalen 1981:
130); perhaps this Limón Incised cylinder came from the
Nochixtlán Valley, where chemical sourcing shows potters pro-
duced local versions, as this type does not appear to have been pro-
duced in the Valley of Oaxaca.
Discovered by Marcus Winter in a recent salvage project at
Etlatongo, a small rim sherd from a cylindrical bowl exhibits a
fully-realized Olmec-style profile incised on the vessel’s exterior
(see Figure 9). The sherd comes from a café fino bowl, with an
orange/red slip distinctive of this ware. While the archaeological
context does not provide an exact chronological placement, the clay
and surface treatment of this ware are distinctly Cruz B. At some
point, perhaps after the vessel was no longer used, the eye was
gouged out and much of the slip removed,perhaps similarto the ritua-lized destruction of some examples of Olmec paraphernalia elsewhere
in Mesoamerica. Naturalistic images such as this are virtually
unknown in any part of Oaxaca; more elaborately incised profiles
designs are associated with Tlapacoya-Zohapilco, with one example
from that site sourced by INAA as a central Mexican product.
Unlike the Valley of Oaxaca, double-line break designs do not
occur until after the Cruz B phase, and do not feature the abstract
cleft-headed elements as do the slightly earlier examples in the
Valley of Oaxaca (Figure 10). Indeed, many of the more abstract
and geometric double-line breaks from the Valley of Oaxaca prob-
ably come from post-850 b.c. contexts. The placement of this
double-line/extended bracket below the interior rim of conical
bowls is fundamentally different from the Olmec-style inverted
U’s/brackets placed on the exterior of cylindrical bowls.
Figure 7. Conejo Orange-on-White vessel, excavated at Etlatongo but
sourced through INAA (MURR sample BLM011) as a San Lorenzo import.
Figure 8. Two examples of Limón Incised vessels excavated at Etlatongo;
INAA shows the top pot was made at Etlatongo (MURR sample SLN266).
Figure 9. An Olmec-style profile face on the exterior of a café fino
cylindrical bowl, excavated at Etlatongo; stippling indicates red slip.
Drawn by Juan Cruz Pascual.
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STYLE AND INTERACTION: EPISTEMOLOGY AND
METHODOLOGY IN CERAMIC COMPARISONS
The appearance of pottery that features Olmec-style designs at sites
in both the Gulf Coast and various regions of Oaxaca presents
numerous epistemological and interpretive challenges. The move-
ment of Olmec-style pots, with decorative motifs invoking abstract
religious beliefs and cosmology, implies “the dissemination of theseideas” (Clark 2007:31). Are these actual Gulf Coast imports in
Oaxaca, or are all Olmec-style vessels the result of local Zapotec
and Mixtec production?
Different epistemologies lie behind the models that have been
proposed for this interaction, ranging from systems theory to
agency perspectives. An outgrowth of processual archaeology,
systems theory has become a core element of the neoevolutionary
paradigm that focuses on how culture (viewed as a system of inter-
communicating networks) adapts humans to the local environment,
both natural and social (Binford 1962). Despite the focus on open
systems detailed in James Miller ’s Living Systems (1978), which
epitomizes the organic analogy utilized by its proponents, systems
theory rejects significant external contributions to the developmen-
tal trajectory of a given society (Flannery 1972). Outright conquest and incorporation of a region, however, are invoked by systems
theory explanations for the later Zapotec Monte Albán state’s
spread through domination and control of adjacent regions
(Marcus and Flannery 1996). Essentially a functionalist paradigm,
many examples of systems theory focus on how different feedback
mechanisms maintained an ancient system in a state of equilibrium
or homeostasis. In terms of explaining change, although ostensibly
concerned with internal processes (such as demographic increases),
“deviation amplifying” positive feedback often was introduced
externally through random change, such as the genetic mutation
in wild grass that provoked systematic changes leading to the devel-
opment of agriculture in Mesoamerica (Flannery 1972).
Agency perspectives (Bourdieu 1977; Giddens 1984; Ortner
1984), in contrast, explore social identities and negotiations of status and power. Material culture is central to such a perspective,
as it may reproduce, promote, and/or challenge agency while
actual social negotiations produce political relations. Such a per-
spective views agents as socially embedded and imperfect,
engaged in an interactive and recursive relationship between struc-
tures that both constrain and enable them. Much debate exists
among scholars surrounding motivations and the amount of inten-
tionality of agents (see Dobres and Robb 2000), but the goal is
not to recreate the lives of specific past individuals. Another possi-
bility considers culture as existing between ideological (expressed/
possessed by a particular social group) and hegemonic (shared and
naturalized conventions) poles, where individual behavior positions
itself somewhere between these two poles (Comaroff and Comaroff
1991:21-24)
While specific applications of these models to the Early
Formative Oaxaca data will be detailed below, neoevolutionary per-
spectives have been central in developing models that categorize
Oaxacan societies and the San Lorenzo Olmecs as chiefdoms (see
above) and minimize direct contact or impact between theseregions (Flannery 1968; Flannery and Marcus 1994). A corollary
of such a neoevolutionist interpretation is that Valley of Oaxaca
potters produced more Olmec-style vessels than Olmec potters at
San Lorenzo, a view largely based on the supposed greater reper-
toire of Olmec symbols and designs at Valley of Oaxaca sites
(Flannery and Marcus 2000). Furthermore, because some of these
Olmec-style symbols appear on distinctive Oaxacan gray ware
pottery, it has been claimed that such pots produced in the Valley
of Oaxaca were exported to the Gulf Coast Olmec and other
regions of Early Formative Mesoamerica, such as Tlapacoya-
Zohapilco; Flannery and Marcus (1994, 2000) state highland
regions exhibit earlier and more frequent examples of Olmec-style
symbols than the Gulf Coast region. In addition to assessing the ear-
liest appearances of elements of this style, I challenge the supposedgreater variety and frequency of Olmec-style symbols in the Valley
of Oaxaca, critiquing three factors: definition of Olmec-style
pottery, classification and comparison of sherds from different
sites, and identification of opposed Zapotec forces.
First Appearance of the Olmec Style on Pottery
While it is possible that earlier examples of Olmec-style motifs
appeared on perishable materials, pottery provides a more perma-
nent medium to observe where this iconography first manifested
across Mesoamerica. Appearing as a well-defined and consistent
suite of symbols, Clark (2007:31) notes that “a long evolution in
other media appears unlikely.” As noted above for San Lorenzo,incised symbols appear more than one hundred years earlier than
the San Lorenzo horizon; volutes and fine incision appear around
1350 b.c. while inverted U’s ascend in popularity beginning
around 1250 b.c. in the Chicharras phase (Di Castro and Cyphers
2006:51). In both the Valley of Oaxaca and the Nochixtlán
Valley, Olmec-style iconography does not appear prior to the
phases (San José and Cruz B) contemporaneous with the San
Lorenzo phase. Di Castro and Cyphers (2006:47–48) have reana-
lyzed Christine Niederberger ’s (1976, 1987) Zohapilco excavations,
which have been cited by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus (2000)
as showing the “priority” of the highlands in many Olmec motifs;
Di Castro and Cyphers determine that some of the relevant stratigra-
phy is problematic, with one stratum cited as producing pre-San
Lorenzo horizon (Nevada phase) materials actually part of one
larger deposit, Strata 9–12, with a later (Ayotla phase) date.
Finally, in the well-documented pre-San Lorenzo horizon ceramic
inventories of different Mazatan sites, such as Paso de la Amada,
Olmec-style designs are not present (Clark 2007; Lesure 2000),
although identical incised geometric designs are present at both
San Lorenzo and Cantón Corralito prior to the San Lorenzo
horizon (Blomster and Cheetham 2008). Olmec-style figurines
also appear earlier in the Gulf Coast (see above). Thus, the San
Lorenzo Olmecs expressed many aspects of this style in ceramics
prior to other regions.
Figure 10. Double-line breaks—with incised circles—on the rims of white-
slipped conical bowls, from post-Cruz B contexts at Etlatongo.
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Zapotec “Olmec-style” Designs, Frequencies, and Forces in
Oaxaca
For sherds in Oaxaca to be considered Olmec style, the designs
should minimally be excised; if incised, the design must comprise
a composition more complex than a single straight line, with
possible shapes and elements noted above. When applying such
standards to what Flannery and Marcus (1994) include as Olmec
style (or “pan-Mesoamerican;” see below) in Early Formativepottery from the Valley of Oaxaca, it becomes evident that
Flannery and Marcus have been overly inclusive.
Flannery and Marcus (2000) support the supposed priority of
Oaxaca in the creation of Olmec-style symbols by claiming a
greater frequency and variety of them in the Valley of Oaxaca,
where they refer to them as pan-Mesoamerican symbols, which
they define as excised or incised, and “include depictions of what
may be supernatural beings, great natural forces, or cosmological
beliefs” (1994:136)—essentially the basic definition of Olmec
style. Flannery and Marcus have never distinguished Olmec-style
symbols as discrete from how they conceive pan-Mesoamerican
designs, invariably referring to typical Olmec symbols—the
St. Andrew’s cross, for example—when discussing them. Indeed,
Flannery and Marcus (1994:140) note that in their typologyMotifs 15 through 18 are probably specific to Oaxaca and do not
include them as “pan-Mesoamerican.” To avoid confusion, I con-
tinue to use the term Olmec style, while noting Flannery and
Marcus’ (1994, 2000) preference for the term “pan-Mesoamerican.”
A basic problem is how Flannery and Marcus define and count
these designs, many of which appear to be distinguished by very
minor variations. I explore this problem through the range of free-
standing motifs that characterize Olmec-style pottery in the Valley
of Oaxaca. Pyne (1976:272–274) defines 18 free-standing motifs,
14 of which she considers examples of Olmec iconography. Pyne
(1976:273) and Flannery and Marcus (1994:140–145) classify
seven of these motifs (1–7) as representing the fire-serpent (which
Flannery and Marcus interpret as Zapotec lightning/sky) and
seven (Motifs 8–14) as images of the were-jaguar (or earthquake/earth). Various techniques are deployed to increase the variety
and quantities of such motifs in Oaxaca. When they illustrate a
sample of Pyne’s first 14 motifs, Flannery and Marcus (1994:
Figures 12.5–12.13) include designs that do not appear outside of
Oaxaca and should not be considered Olmec style—doing so
inflates the variations of these motifs and the actual number of
Olmec-style sherds in the Valley of Oaxaca. Flannery and Marcus
(1994) organize Pyne’s Olmec-style motifs to include numerous
variants, many of which consist of thin, often straight, incised
lines. I suggest such designs do not meet a rigorous definition of
Olmec style and should not be included in their quantities of
Olmec symbols in Oaxaca. For example, the often thin and straight
incised lines, sometime combined with hachure, that comprise
Motifs 4, 5, 6, 12, and 14 have no visual relationship to
Olmec-style designs and iconography. Furthermore, motifs that
are primarily incised lines, or variants of double-line breaks, may
fall late in or after the San José phase (see above). Unless hachure
is combined with cleft shapes, it is not Olmec style; I exclude
from the rubric of Olmec style all vessels with simple incised
lines or vertical bands of hachure; several sherds with such
designs were included in the Valley of Oaxaca samples in the sour-
cing study reported below and appear to be local Oaxaca products.
Excluding many motifs considered by Flannery and Marcus as
Olmec-style renders their assertion of the larger repertoire of these
symbols in the Valley of Oaxaca problematic at best. It also
exposes one of several problems in their ceramic totals; when
Flannery and Marcus (1994:Table 16.1, 2000:Table 2) present fre-
quencies of Olmec-style pottery from the Valley of Oaxaca, they
do not specify which motifs or variants are included. Thus, it is
not possible to simply go through their totals and recalculate more
accurate frequencies of Olmec-style materials from their exca-
vations, unless all excised sherds are assumed to be Olmec style
(see Stark 2007 and below). The quantities of sherds that Flannery and Marcus cite as exhibiting such iconography, and
types of designs in Oaxaca, are vastly overstated.
Equally problematic is Flannery and Marcus’ (2000:24) asser-
tion that their Valley of Oaxaca excavations yielded more types of
pottery with Olmec designs than at San Lorenzo. Several distortions
occur with their comparisons between ceramic assemblages from
the Gulf Coast and Valley of Oaxaca. Archaeologists create etic
pottery types based on specific requirements and features of their
assemblage (Spaulding 1953). Flannery and Marcus (2000:25)
express their “surprise” that the San Lorenzo ceramic typology
created by Coe and Diehl (1980) includes only one pottery type
with Olmec symbols, Calzadas Carved (the San Lorenzo typology
is being revised by the SLTAP; see Di Castro and Cyphers 2006).
Compared to only one pottery type at San Lorenzo with Olmecmotifs, Flannery and Marcus (2000:25) emphasize their four
types of pottery from the Valley of Oaxaca with such motifs
(Leandro Gray, San José Black-and-White, Atoyac Yellow-White,
and Delfina Fine Gray); they associate the higher number of types
with Olmec-style designs in Oaxaca with Zapotec potters’ greater
involvement in their creation. Their comparison is fundamentally
flawed, as Flannery and Marcus (2000) overlook the different classi-
fication criteria. Because the pottery excavated by Coe and Diehl
(1980) at San Lorenzo suffered extensive erosion, preservation of
surface colorand slip varied and therefore does not playa significant
role in their classification. Conversely, surface color plays a primary
role in Flannery and Marcus’ (1994) classification of the well-
preserved Valley of Oaxaca pottery as is evident in the names of
the types that exhibit supposed Olmec designs. Since Coe andDiehl were not able to make distinctions in slip color a consistent
factor in their classification, they generally did not assign excised
sherds to different types; Calzadas Carved includes only pottery
decorated by excised lines, sometimes in combination with
incised decorations. Flannery and Marcus’ comparison of ceramic
types reveals nothing significant about production of Olmec
pottery in these two regions but simply highlights differences in
methodologies. Differences in these etic ceramic types cannot be
interpreted to assign greater Oaxacan priority in the creation of
Olmec-style designs, contra Flannery and Marcus (2000).
Nor is Flannery and Marcus’ comparison accurate, as there are
other types of contemporaneous pottery at San Lorenzo that
exhibit incised and some excised Olmec-style designs, such as
examples on the following four types: Limón Incised; Conejo
Orange-on-White (Figure 3d; Coe and Diehl 1980:Figure 150); an
Olmec-style face carved on a specimen of Yagua Orange (Coe
and Diehl 1980:Figure 158b); and several possibilities—not defini-
tive due to preservation and size of the sherds—of carved designs on
Tatagapa Red (Coe and Diehl 1980:Figures 159o, p). While Coe and
Diehl’s (1980:Figure 146) sample of Xochiltepec White consists of
restricted vessels without plastic decoration, one San Lorenzo
sample of this type in the MURR database (SLN519) is an
incised hemispherical bowl, and a decorated example excavated in
the Valley of Oaxaca (but sourced as originating at San Lorenzo)
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is also in the MURR database (see below). Due, however, to the
erosion of surface color on San Lorenzo pottery, incised
Xochiltepec White vessels (which are extremely rare) may actually
be Conejo Orange-on-White without any remaining traces of slip;
thus, Xochiltepec White clearly is not a significant type for the dis-
semination of Olmec-style designs. While the number of etic
Olmec-style pottery types is an artifact of different methodologies,
Flannery and Marcus, however, fail to consider fully the range of
decorated types at San Lorenzo.The ceramic comparison between the Gulf Coast and Valley of
Oaxaca becomes even more problematic when sherd frequencies
are examined. Flannery and Marcus (2000:22–25) note that only
4% of Level F’s sherds at San Lorenzo are Calzadas Carved; they
compare this frequency with Leandro Gray sherds from San José
Mogote as a type, noting this type comprises 23% of all middle
San José phase sherds. Their comparison is invalid and misleading,
as not all Leandro Gray sherds have Olmec-style designs and cannot
be compared as a type with one that is comprised completely of
Olmec-style sherds. In fact, only 12% of Leandro Gray sherds
from a midden at San José Mogote are decorated at all (Flannery
and Marcus 2000:Table 2); how many of these have Olmec-style
motifs remains unclear. Only 2% of another type with occasional
Olmec symbols, Atoyac Yellow White, is decorated; Flannery andMarcus’ (2000) focus on the high frequency of this type overall at
San José Mogote is irrelevant. Thus, by comparing “Olmec-style”
pottery from the Valley of Oaxaca by types, the vast majority of
which do not exhibit Olmec-style designs, with those from San
Lorenzo, Flannery and Marcus further create the illusion of a
higher frequency of Olmec-style designs in Oaxaca, a tactic also
recently identified by Stark (2007:51), who, using only excised
designs at San José Mogote, recalculates Olmec-style frequencies
as between 1% and 4%.
Flannery and Marcus employ the same strategies in their presen-
tation of Niederberger ’s Zohapilco data, where they use quantities
of all sherds, both decorated and undecorated, from the types
Tortuga Pulido, Volcán Pulido, Atoyac Gris Fino, Valle Borde
Blanco, Pilli Blanco, and Paloma Negativo to generate inflated fre-quencies (between 27% and 29%) of Olmec-style motifs, which
Flannery and Marcus (2000:19) proclaim as the highest frequencies
of Olmec-style designs in Mesoamerica (see also Di Castro and
Cyphers 2006:50–51). Niederberger (1976:159–164) recalculated
the frequencies of Olmec-style motifs as only 0.5% to 2.0%,
while Stark (2007:Table 3.1) estimates 0.4% to 1.7% and Di
Castro and Cyphers (2006:51), only 1.15%, significantly less than
frequencies for Olmec-style sherds at San Lorenzo, calculated by
David Cheetham (2010) as 6.4% for Calzadas Carved, 8.8% for
Limón Incised (based on rim sherds from Coe and Diehl’s
project). Flannery and Marcus (2000:19) also erroneously
promote the appearance of supposed Olmec-style designs on six
types at Zohapilco (compared, once again, to only one decorated
type at San Lorenzo) as significant.
Returning to the Valley of Oaxaca, Flannery and Marcus have
also attempted to emphasize an important Zapotec role in the cre-
ation of Olmec symbols by linking the two basic forces represented
by Pyne’s Motifs 1–7 (fire-serpent) and 8–14 (were-jaguar) with
distinct Zapotec expression of natural forces, sky/lightning and
earth/earthquake, respectively (see above). In addition to ill-
advisedly conflating 14 such disparate motifs as representing two
opposed “forces” (a ceramic vessel from central Mexico often
used to illustrate these “forces” shows front and profile views of
the same dragon-like entity), identifying these symbols with
Zapotec forces known through Spanish ethnohistoric documents
2,500 years later remains especially problematic. Flannery and
Marcus (2000:13) speculate that this “ancient dichotomy” existed
long before the Gulf Coast Olmec; no supporting material evidence,
however, has ever been offered. Furthermore, no clear connection
has ever been developed between these Olmec-style symbols and
later Zapotec belief and iconography. One potential link has been
cited by Marcus (1989:196), who connects the Early Formative
Zapotec “earth/earthquake” iconography with the earthquakeglyph from later Zapotec writing, which Marcus and Flannery
(1996:130) believe first appeared on a stone slab (Monument 3)
from San José Mogote, the dating of which remains debated (see
Cahn and Winter 1993). Urcid (1992:157) demonstrates that the
supposed earthquake sign (Glyph E in the system established by
Alfonso Caso) on Monument 3 is Glyph L—not related to earth-
quake. Thus, Olmec symbols do not correspond to early Zapotec
iconography. While the visual distinction between fire-serpent and
were-jaguar imagery obviously reflects important conceptual cat-
egories, they may not form a neat dichotomy between two opposing
forces.
There has been an inaccurate impression that the Valley of
Oaxaca had both more types and higher frequencies of Olmec-
style pottery, signaling greater involvement in their creation (asZapotec expressions of natural forces) and dissemination; utilization
of such flawed data by other scholars leads to inherently problematic
conclusions (see Stark 2007). Flannery and Marcus’ category of
“pan-Mesoamerican” designs includes clearly local as well as
Olmec style designs, inflating their frequencies in Oaxaca. In
addition to artificially stacked comparisons, there is an underlying
problem that simply having more varieties of designs (as defined
by archaeologists) correlates with the designs’ origins.
Missing from comparisons of the Gulf Coast and Valley of
Oaxaca ceramic assemblages has been another major Olmec-style
decorated ceramic type—Limón Incised—as it has not been docu-
mented by Flannery’s important excavations at San José Mogote.
Additionally, while Marcus (1989:194) asserts that the Valley of
Oaxaca Zapotecs were more involved in the creation and productionof pottery with “pan-Mesoamerican” symbols than the Mixtecs, the
Etlatongo excavations encountered numerous examples of both
Limón Incised pottery and Conejo Orange-on-White (virtually
absent in the Valley of Oaxaca), as well as all of the basic types
found in the Valley of Oaxaca. The supposed priority of the
Zapotecs in the creation of Olmec-style gray ware and other
pottery can no longer be accepted, even within the boundaries of
modern Oaxaca state. Indeed, the centrality of San José Mogote
in Early Formative sociopolitical complexity and interregional inter-
action may largely be an artifact of its earlier excavation; Etlatongo
is as large as nuclear San José Mogote, and its inhabitants were
probably more intensively involved in utilizing, importing, and pro-
ducing a whole spectrum of Olmec-style objects.
MOVEMENT OF OLMEC-STYLE POTTERY IN EARLY
FORMATIVE MESOAMERICA
Throughout the debate on the significance of Olmec-style pottery
throughout Early Formative Mesoamerica, scholars lacked robust
compositional or petrographic data. While it had long been sus-
pected that Xochiltepec White may have been a Gulf Coast export
(Pires-Ferreira 1975:82), its origin remained undocumented.
Similarly, fine gray ware pots, including those with Olmec-style
designs, have long been asserted to be a Valley of Oaxaca export
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but without significant support based on analyses of raw materials
(Flannery and Marcus 1994, 2000).
In order to more objectively determine the origin of Olmec
pottery, researchers have collaborated on a program of chemical
characterization. Over 1,000 archaeological pottery and modern
clay samples from the Gulf Coast, Oaxaca state, Chiapas, and
central Mexico were subjected to Instrumental Neutron Activation
Analysis (INAA) at the University of Missouri Research Reactor
(MURR). Samples were selected to include local pottery as wellas possible imports. Details on methodology and statistical tech-
niques, which focused on Mahalanobis distances and multivariate
analyses for compositional pattern recognition, have been pre-
viously published (Blomster et al. 2005; Neff et al. 2006). An
effort was made to include the eight supposed Oaxaca imports (as
identified visually by Pyne but never illustrated by Flannery and
Marcus) from the San Lorenzo collection, curated at the Peabody
Museum of Natural History, Yale University (Blomster 1998a,
2004). Between this INAA project and one directed by David
Cheetham (2010; Cheetham et al. 2009), those sherds have all
been subjected to INAA. Through INAA, it was possible to deter-
mine the compositional group and region of origin for 726 (updating
previously published results) samples of pottery (see Table 1).
The results demonstrate a clear pattern of San Lorenzo pro-duction and dissemination of Olmec pottery, producing both fine,
white-paste pottery and decorated Olmec-style pottery. The San
Lorenzo Olmecs exported several types of pots to regional centers
across Mesoamerica, with not all regions exhibiting the full array
of pottery types available during this time period. Some pottery
types, such as Xochiltepec White (Figure 11) and Conejo
Orange-on-White (Figure 7), appear to be produced solely by the
Olmecs. Examples of Xochiltepec White vessels, while often in
the shape of vegetal effigies, rarely exhibit plastic decoration (see
above), while examples of Conejo Orange-on-White from both
San Lorenzo and Etlatongo manifest elaborate designs. Also, one
Xochiltepec White example found at San José Mogote, imported
from San Lorenzo (SLN206 in the MURR database), has a
complex incised design, and Flannery and Marcus (1994:258)note other Valley of Oaxaca examples have excised
“pan-Mesoamerican” motifs. In Oaxaca, other relatively undeco-
rated types imported to Etlatongo and San José Mogote resemble
La Mina White (BLM032) and differentially fired Perdida
Black-and-White (BLM031, SLN213) defined at San Lorenzo
(Coe and Diehl 1980) and identical to so-called Coatepec
White-rimmed Black, as defined in the Tehuacán Valley and the
Valley of Oaxaca. In terms of decorated pots, a small portion of
the non-white paste Olmec-style vessels recovered from excavations
at Etlatongo and Valley of Oaxaca sites were imported from San
Lorenzo.
Throughout Early Formative period Mesoamerica, chieflycenters imported pots decorated with Olmec-style iconography,
while potters in each region produced vastly more local emulations,
imitations, and variants with much regional diversity in types of
designs and frequency of both imported Olmec-style pots and
local creations (see Blomster et al. 2005). For pottery with
Olmec-style symbols from sites in Oaxaca, the INAA results are
especially interesting. So-called gray ware pottery with Calzadas
Carved designs, asserted as solely a Valley of Oaxaca product
(Flannery and Marcus 1994, 2000), was actually manufactured at
both San Lorenzo and in several regions of Oaxaca. Examples of
Olmec-style iconography imported from San Lorenzo but found
in the Valleys of Oaxaca and Nochixtlán invariably appear on the
exterior of Delfina Fine Gray cylinders. This type, along with
Leandro Gray, have been referred to as important wares “widelyexported” from the Valley of Oaxaca to the rest of Mesoamerica
(Flannery and Marcus 1994:157, 259); the INAA performed at
MURR directly contradicts the idea of a substantial amount of
Oaxacan gray wares with Olmec-style designs exchanged through-
out Mesoamerica, especially arriving at San Lorenzo. At San José
Mogote, one large fragment of a Delfina Fine Gray cylindrical
vessel has diagonal “fire serpent ” excisions filled with red
pigment (see Figure 4). INAA demonstrates that this specimen
was an import from San Lorenzo (Sample SLN287). While a
small percentage of sherds classified as Delfina Gray may be San
Lorenzo imports, sherds classified as the thicker Leandro Gray
appear to be limited in production and distribution to the Valley
of Oaxaca.
At Etlatongo, fine gray ware pots with Olmec-style iconographywere encountered virtually identical to examples of Delfina Fine
Gray from San José Mogote (see Figure 12). INAA reveals,
however, that such vessels at Etlatongo were not made in the
Table 1. Regional Assignments for San Lorenzo Horizon Pottery
Region as identified by INAA
Archaeological Context:Gulf
Coast MazatanValley of
Oaxaca Nochixtlán
ValleyValley of Mexico
Chiapas CentralDepression
Isthmus of Tehuantepec Total
San Lorenzo (Gulf Coast) 203 0 0 0 0 0 0 203
Mazatan (various sites) 23 177 0 0 0 0 0 200
Valley of Oaxaca (varioussites)
13 0 42 0 0 0 0 55
Etlatongo (Nochixtlán
Valley)
35 0 0 26 0 0 0 61
Tlapacoya (Valley of Mexico) 17 0 0 0 87 0 0 104
San Isidro (Chiapas Central
Depression)
1 0 0 0 0 41 0 42
Laguna Zope (Isthmus of
Tehuantepec)
3 0 0 0 0 0 58 61
726
Note: Updated from Blomster et al. 2005 (Table 1)
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adjacent Valley of Oaxaca, Calzadas Carved gray wares at Etlatongo
appear to be either Gulf Coast imports or local Etlatongo products.
Indeed, both gray wares illustrated in Figure 12, from San José
Mogote and Etlatongo, originated at San Lorenzo. Local versions
of Olmec-style iconography at Etlatongo most frequently adorn
coarse café paste vessels, as they do in the Valley of Oaxaca.
While Oaxacan-made versions of decorated Delfina Fine Gray
and Leandro Gray vessels do not appear to have been exported in
the current INAA sample, it would be interesting to determine if some examples, perhaps without Olmec-style designs but undeco-
rated or with purely local motifs, did move between regions; one
possible example from the Valley of Oaxaca has been identified
at Etlatongo (Blomster 2009; see above). At both Etlatongo and
San José Mogote, potters created local imitations of Olmec-style
pottery in a variety of clay recipes and forms, using both slips
and design configurations unique to each region. From the limited
INAA sample, it appears that a greater frequency of gray ware
pots with Olmec-style symbols were imported at Etlatongo com-
pared with San José Mogote, which supports the greater range of
types or styles of Olmec vessels (see above) found at Etlatongo,
and further contradicts the idea that the Early Formative Mixtecs
were less involved in interregional interaction than their Zapotec con-
temporaries (Marcus 1989:194). While in most Early Formativeperiod contexts at Etlatongo, Olmec-style pots, both imported and
local, represent 5% or less of the assemblage, in three contexts that
contributed sherds to the MURR study, they constitute between
10% and 22% (Blomster and Cheetham 2008). In terms of the fire-
serpent and were-jaguar categories used by many scholars to charac-
terize abstract Olmec-style designs on pottery, Etlatongo is also more
similar to San Lorenzowith its focus on fire-serpent /dragon imagery,
while both designs are more evenly represented at SanJosé Mogote.I
note, however, that many of the so-called were-jaguar or “earth”
motifs in the Valley of Oaxaca appear to be primarily local, and
may have little to do with the Olmec style.
The INAA data have several implications for both macro- and
micro-scale interaction in Early Formative Mesoamerica. None of
the Calzadas Carved examples in the San Lorenzo sample analyzedat MURR were made in Oaxaca; however the presence of one or two
Oaxaca-made vessels at San Lorenzo would not contradict the
pattern generated by the INAA data. A recent attempt through pet-
rographic analysis to suggest that a handful of sherds at San Lorenzo
were made in Oaxaca failed to overturn the results of the MURR
study because of the assumption that only Oaxaca clays would
contain volcanic materials (Stoltman et al. 2005). This assertion is
fundamentally incorrect as shown by petrographic analyses of
clays and pots made in the San Lorenzo vicinity (Guevara 2004;
Neff et al. 2006). In addition, the Stoltman/Flannery study limits
non-plastic inclusions in San Lorenzo pottery to calcareous sand
and quartzite (Stoltman et al. 2005:11213). A recent study using
petrography and x-ray diffraction has contradicted this assertion as
well, revealing the complex mineralogy of San Lorenzo pottery(Cheetham et al. 2009).
Thus, the San Lorenzo Olmecs had priority in the production and
dissemination of both Olmec-style decorated pottery and white
paste pottery. Societies in neighboring regions, such as the
Nochixtlán Valley and the Valley of Oaxaca, made their own imita-
tions of this pottery but generally did not exchange it with each
other or with the Olmecs. Undecorated pottery or pots with local
motifs may have been exchanged between regions such as the
Nochixtlán Valley and the Valley of Oaxaca (Blomster 2009).
While the Olmecs may not have created all of the motifs exhibited
even on Gulf Coast pottery, they played a fundamental role in
synthesizing them into a coherent package, iconography dramati-
cally different from that displayed stylistically in ceramic objects
prior to the San Lorenzo horizon beyond the Gulf Coast.
EPISTEMOLOGY AND MODELS OF EARLY
FORMATIVE INTERACTION
The chiefly centers of San José Mogote and Etlatongo imported
Olmec pottery, both white paste and with Olmec-style iconography,
from San Lorenzo rather than from each other. This pattern attests to
the high value that was placed on Gulf Coast-produced pottery and
suggests that models that have downplayed the nature and origin
of the iconography of Olmec pottery must be reevaluated. The differ-
ences in the assemblages of Olmec-style material between the Valley
of Oaxaca and the Nochixtlán Valley indicate the great variety in the
nature of interregional interaction across Mesoamerica. Models must
consider the agency of all players in this interaction.
An important 1968 paper by Flannery set the tone for much of
the past forty years of interpretation. In the so-called emulation
Figure 11. Xochiltepec White pottery excavated at Etlatongo but identified
through INAA (MURR sample BLM001) as a Gulf Coast import.
Figure 12. Examples of carved gray ware pottery, both sourced through
INAA as San Lorenzo products. The one on the right was excavated at
Etlatongo (MURR sample BLM028); the one on the left was found at
San José Mogote (MURR sample BLM066).
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model, Flannery argues against symbols appearing in Oaxaca with
significant Olmec-based meaning, focusing on local developmental
patterns and use of Olmec symbols by Zapotec leaders. Flannery’s
(1968) emulation model derives from systems theory (see above)
and relies primarily on scattered ethnographic analogies from north-
western North America and Burma, not from Mesoamerica. As a
neoevolutionary model, the focus is on local developments, mini-
mizing any foreign contact or impact from the more complexly
organized Olmecs. While this model displays a welcome emphasison the strategizing of local Zapotec leaders, the agency of the Olmec
and the impact of their symbols remain undeveloped. Nearly thirty
years later, in the face of what Flannery and Marcus (1994) con-
sidered as mounting evidence for similar sociopolitical organization
of the Olmecs and Early Formative Zapotecs, they transformed the
emulation model into a peer polity model, which focuses on change
emerging from the interaction of societies, roughly comparable
politically, that quickly spread any innovations through the
network of participating societies (Renfrew 1986:6). In Flannery
and Marcus’ (1994, 2000) most recent scenario, the Olmecs were
simply one of many contemporaneous Mesoamerican chiefdoms
exchanging pottery without any priority in the creation and dissemi-
nation of Olmec-style symbols. Flannery and Marcus argue that a
pan-Mesoamerican style (what has been referred to here as Olmecstyle), like other features of Early Formative Mesoamerican
period societies, arose out of competitive interaction among chief-
doms as part of an “adaptive autonomy” that speeds up evolution.
Even before the INAA results, the idea that such a consistent
abstract iconography from across Mesoamerica could be the result
of sporadic interaction between largely independent societies had
been challenged (Blomster 1998a; Stark 2000). Clearly the vast dis-
parity between contemporaneous societies on the Gulf Coast and
Oaxaca contradicts the first criterion in applying a peer polity
model, the presence of polities of comparable size (Renfrew 1982).
Understanding San Lorenzo horizon interaction has not been
advanced by evolutionary models that provide coarse socio-political
typologies and reject significant impact between distant groups.
Agency perspectives (see above) focus on negotiations of statusand power and seem more amenable to an interaction that may
have focused heavily on religion and its correlates in societal ideol-
ogy. With interregional interaction, agency must be explored from
multiple perspectives for the different parties involved, focusing on
the constant contestation of power and relationships. Such a perspec-
tive also escapes the narrow formalism of neoevolutionary economic
perspectives and its focus on Western capitalist ideas and decisions,
allowing for different forms of interaction within and between
societies that go beyond reciprocal exchange (Polyani 1957).
Recognizing that not all Early Formative societies were at the
same level of sociopolitical complexity and that relationships
between contemporaneous societies may have taken many forms
allows for different models that may more accurately reflect relation-
ships between societies such as the Olmecs, Zapotecs, and Mixtecs.
In relationships between societies of different levels of complexity,
one society in the relationship may be considered a superordinate
center. Defined in both preindustrial states and noncentralized
societies, Helms (1993) suggests that a superordinate center rep-
resents an earthly approximation of a divine, cosmological model.
Helms’ (1993:96) model emphasizes acquisition of goods, which
she defines as a one-sided activity very separate from concepts
such as exchange and reciprocity, and focuses attention on nego-
tiations among social actors at different levels in the societies
involved. The relationship of a superordinate center (which may
characterize San Lorenzo) and outside regions will depend on dis-
tance and the interest of the participants in this interaction. Thus,
there will be much variety in these interactions based on the charac-
ter and organization of outlying societies as well as the motivations
of all agents. While the impoverished neoevolutionary typology cat-
egorizes non-Gulf Coast Early Formative period ranked societies as
chiefdoms, much variety existed in the internal organization and
integration of factions within such societies,which impacted exter-
nal relationships. Debates on understanding Uruk interaction inthe Near East suggest the range of models, from world systems to
distance parity, that may apply across different regions manifesting
a similar phenomenon (Algaze 1993; Stein 1998). What these dis-
parate models recognize is the mutual impact of interacting
societies. While interaction may be asymmetrical or the societies
involved may be at different levels of sociopolitical complexity, par-
ticipants have agency on different levels that often provoke dynamic
and unexpected short- and long-term results among the interacting
parties.
I integrate the concept of a superordinate center with that of a
regional cult with the superordinate center as the religious and cos-
mological focus or even origin of the cult. Religious cults are known
for later Mesoamerica, such as the Quetzalcoatl cult of the
Epiclassic and Postclassic periods (Ringle et al. 1998). Regionalcults spread across ethnic, political, and linguistic boundaries as
they promote transcultural rituals and play important roles in both
generating new interaction patterns as well as providing an ideologi-
cal basis for transformations in participating cultures (Werbner
1977). While cults are expansive religions, they are not necessarily
spread through force, and they exhibit diverse manifestations due to
considerable agency on the part of participating societies. For
example, the Chavín horizon in Peru, which manifested its under-
lying principles in various media that appear over a dispersed geo-
graphic area, has been characterized as a regional cult, with varying
impacts on societies in contact with it (Burger 1992).
Olmec interregional interactions may have intertwined the
spread of a regional cult with acquisition and/or exchange of
exotic goods desired at San Lorenzo, such as magnetite mirrorsfrom the Valley of Oaxaca (Pires-Ferreira 1975) and ilmenite
cubes acquired from central Chiapas, probably from an outpost
established at their manufacturing point at Plumajillo (Agrinier
1989). Superordinate centers, such as San Lorenzo, have an obli-
gation to extend the spread of cosmic order across regions, generally
by elites from such centers presenting skillfully crafted items to
leaders of distant groups, while acquiring exotic foreign items
from such groups and reinforcing their status (Helms 1993:
179–180). It is worth noting that the San Lorenzo Olmecs interacted
only with already ranked societies; transfers of exotics between
regional leaders also sealed alliances. Rather than Olmec-style
pots, other foreign objects of value arrived at San Lorenzo and
may have served as distant symbols supporting and legitimizing
their religion and cosmology.
From a Oaxacan perspective, emerging leaders obtained Olmec
ceramics, both pottery vessels and figurines, and made local emula-
tions of them. The relationship between the original and the imita-
tions was dynamic, and differentiating between local and imported
Olmec-style pottery from excavations will more fully reveal their
distributions at sites such as Etlatongo. While utilization and con-
scious emulation of the largely alien Olmec imagery enhanced the
prestige of local Oaxacan elites, the model I propose goes beyond
simple emulation, recognizing that significant nonlocal meanings
were embedded in these abstract Olmec-style symbols, so similar
Blomster146
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across regions. From Oaxacan perspectives, elements of Olmec ico-
nography and cosmology were accepted and incorporated into local
beliefs and represented their connection to a larger cosmic order as
seen by the consistent adherence to Olmec iconographic features in
the pottery. Helms’ (1993:205) focus on acquisition also applies, as
obtaining Olmec vessels and symbols may have transpired outside
of traditional exchange relationships, and involved active nego-
tiations among social agents and political factions; such interactions
do not imply exploitation or long-term cultural assimilation. Thismodel acknowledges that local potters actively contributed some
symbols to Oaxacan versions of Olmec iconography on vessels
made in villages such as Etlatongo and San José Mogote, but the
available data do not suggest that these contributions informed rep-
resentations outside of their respective regions. Local imitations of
Olmec-style pottery by the ranked societies they encountered do
not appear to have been desired or acquired by the San Lorenzo
Olmecs and were generally not imported to the Gulf Coast.
This model also acknowledges multiple interactions and differ-
ent exchanges occurring and allows for many objects that moved
across Mesoamerica unrelated to Olmec interaction. Within a
region, leaders at chiefly centers such as Etlatongo and San José
Mogote may have distributed some San Lorenzo-made Olmec
pots to supporters in the smaller villages within their realm.Indeed, of the 13 Valley of Oaxaca sherds that visually appeared
to be Xochiltepec White, INAA demonstrated that the only four
actually imported from the Gulf Coast were all found at the
chiefly center of San José Mogote. None was found at the small vil-
lages or hamlets of Tierras Largas, Huitzo, and Abasolo. A similar
pattern extends to the few Olmec-style decorated pots demonstrated
through INAA to have been San Lorenzo imports. If Olmec-style
designs were largely confined to Delfina Fine Gray pots, then this
pattern corresponds with Flannery and Marcus’ (1994:263) obser-
vation that this fine gray ware comes primarily from San José
Mogote, while it is extremely scarce at small hamlets such as
Tierras Largas and Abasolo (although two small Delfina Fine
Gray rim sherds, not exhibiting decoration, in the MURR sample
imported from San Lorenzo were found at Tierras Largas). The
imports, infused with the inalienable qualities of their distant
origin, largely remained at the chiefly center that acquired them.
The San Lorenzo Olmecs and their interactions with other Early
Formative societies must be understood in the context of these con-
temporaneous societies. Rather than focusing on which neoevolu-
tionary typology best characterizes the San Lorenzo Olmecs, they
must be understood in comparison to their contemporaries acrossMesoamerica. Comparing the “Red Palace” at San Lorenzo with
millennium-later Zapotec palaces at Monte Albán (Flannery and
Marcus 2000:6) reveals little about the sociopolitical organization
of the Olmecs. Multiple lines of evidence demonstrate that the San
Lorenzo Olmecs were more sociopolitically complex than their con-
temporaries (see Clark 2007). Olmec interaction neither created
Zapotec or Mixtec civilization nor transformed ancient Oaxacans as
has been convincingly argued for Olmec contact with the Mokaya
people of Soconusco’s Mazatan region (Clark and Pye 2000) with
an Olmec enclave at Cantón Corralito and a fundamental transform-
ation in many features of the ceramic assemblage resulting from this
contact (Cheetham 2006, 2010). While the impact of Olmec symbols
and cosmology varied throughout Mesoamerica and was negotiated
on a local level, Karl Taube (2004) has tracked features of Olmec reli-gion and cosmology that resonated in later societies through icono-
graphic elements in depictions of supernatural entities.
Understanding Olmec interaction in Oaxaca does not supersede an
interest in local sequences (contra Grove 2007) but rather is vital to
understanding the nature of early ranked societies in the Valleys of
Nochixtlán and Oaxaca as well as comparative Early Formative
sociopolitical organization. The relationships between the Olmecs,
Zapotecs, and Mixtecs represent a complex episode of “interaction
and entanglement ” (Dietler 1998:298) that added a distinct patina
to early iconography and imagery in the Valleys of Oaxaca and
Nochixtlán and provided additional elements to locally emerging
religion, cosmology, and ideology.
RESUMEN
La interacción entre la costa del Golfo olmeca y varias regiones de
Mesoamérica durante el formativo temprano continua a debate y es pobre-
mente entendida. En Oaxaca, los modelos han sido dominados por la
epistemología neoevolutiva. La interacción entre el valle de Oaxaca y San
Lorenzo ha estado caracterizada por la emulación o por modelos de
primus inter pares, con comparaciones obstaculizadas por comparaciones
inadecuadas entre las tipologías de arqueólogos. Las comparaciones entre
los sitios del valle de Oaxaca, el valle de Nochixtlán y la costa del Golfo
demuestran que San Lorenzo estuvo en un diferente nivel de complejidad
sociopolítica que sus contemporáneos. Observando la evidencia material
de la interacción, resúmenes publicados de la cerámica estilo olmeca del
valle de Oaxaca son reanalizados para establecer afirmaciones de quesitios tales como San José Mogote tuvieron ejemplos mas frecuentes
de diseños olmecas, datos recientes de San Lorenzo refutan esta
interpretación. Con el objeto de determinar el movimiento de la cerámica
del Formativo Temprano, el análisis de activación neutrónica demuestra la
cerámica olmeca de la Costa del Golfo exportada a los mixtecos y zapotecos
en Oaxaca, mientras que recibieron unas cuantas—Si es que acaso algunas—
vasijas en reciprocidad, sugiriendo que nuevos modelos y perspectivas
teóricas deberían de ser aplicadas para entender las relaciones entre las jefa-
turas de Oaxaca y el naciente estado olmeca en San Lorenzo. Una perspec-
tiva de agencia explora lo que los grupos mixtecos, zapotecos, olmecas
pudieron haber tomado de estas interacciones y relaciones, y reconoce
tanto el entendimiento local como de la Costa del Golfo de lo “olmeca.”
Tales relaciones podrían ser caracterizadas más por la adquisición entreregiones, con San Lorenzo como centro rector.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Etlatongo research was made possible by permits and support from theConsejo de Arqueología and both national and state-level branches of INAH,while funding came primarily from a Fulbright (IIE) Fellowship; I thank allpast and current directors and members of the various agencies that havebeen so helpful, as well as the many field assistants from Etlatongo. I alsowish to thank several scholars who have graciously provided feedback onthis paper and/or have provided me with additional data, both published
and unpublished: David Cheetham, Alexander Dent, Richard Diehl,Arthur Joyce, Christopher Pool, Marcus Winter, and an anonymousreviewer. Olaf Jaime-Riverón kindly assisted with the Spanish summary. Iwould also like to thank the other contributors to our Society for American Archaeology symposium in San Juan, and especially our discus-sants John Clark, David Grove, and Barbara Stark for their stimulating com-ments. Any errors remain my own.
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