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RESEARCH ARTICLES her collaborators at the first Olmec capital, San Lorenzo, Veracruz (5), emphasize the Olmec Pottery Production and Export higher sociopolitical level that the Olmecs achieved relative to contemporaneous groups in Ancient Mexico Determined in Mesoamerica (Fig. 1). While leaders, for example, at the emerging chiefdom of San Through Elemental Analysis Jose´ Mogote in the Valley of Oaxaca lived in somewhat better made wattle-and-daub Jeffrey P. Blomster,1* Hector Neff,2 Michael D. Glascock3 huts than other villagers (6), San Lorenzo leaders probably lived in the so-called Red The first Mesoamerican civilization, the Gulf Coast Olmec, is associated with Palace, where they used basalt brought in hierarchical society, monumental art, and an internally consistent ideology, ex- from 60 km away to provide columns, step pressed in a distinct style and salient iconography. Whether the Olmec style coverings, and drainage channels for their arose in just one area or emerged from interactions among scattered contem- residence. Rather than engage in the typo- poraneous societies remains controversial. Using elemental analysis, we de- logical argument as to whether the Olmec termined the regional clay sources of 725 archaeological ceramic samples from constituted a state or a chiefdom, we simply across Mesoamerica. Exported Olmec-style ceramics originated from the San note the more complex level of sociopolitical Lorenzo region of the Gulf Coast, supporting Olmec priority in the creation organization achieved by the Olmec com- and spread of the first unified style and iconographic system in Mesoamerica. pared with that of other contemporaneous societies (7). More than 3000 years ago, the first civiliza- Olmec style. Two views have emerged on the The ‘‘San Lorenzo horizon’’ from 3150 tion in ancient Mexico, the Olmec, coalesced relationship of the Olmec with other contem- to 2800 yr B.P. (1200 to 850 B.C.E., or 1350 along the Mexican Gulf Coast. Much of mod- poraneous cultures, characterized as the to 1000 calibrated B.C.E.) refers to the ear- ern Mexico, along with Guatemala, Belize, ‘‘mother culture’’ and ‘‘sister culture’’ liest spread of Olmec-style ceramic vessels Honduras, and El Salvador, constitutes the cul- perspectives (4). Proponents of the mother- and figurines across Mesoamerica (3, 8, 9). tural region known as Mesoamerica (Fig. 1). culture perspective see the Olmec as more As defined at San Lorenzo (9), some Olmec Elements of the Olmec art style and associ- sociopolitically complex than coeval cultures, ceramic types (such as Calzadas Carved ated iconography—the first coherent icono- playing a central role in the dissemination of pottery) have excised designs that may ex- graphic system in Mesoamerica—that emerged key elements of Mesoamerican civilization. press ideological concepts through iconog- were depicted on stone monuments in the Gulf Sister-culture advocates characterize the Ol- raphy (Fig. 2, A and B). Two additional Coast, as well as on portable ceramic objects mec as at the same sociopolitical level as San Lorenzo horizon pottery types have a that have been found at sites throughout other contemporaneous chiefdoms; while fine kaolin clay body: Xochiltepec White Mesoamerica (1, 2). Because this iconography engaged in competitive interaction, the Ol- and Conejo Orange-on-White (Fig. 2, C and has been linked with the dissemination of the mec had no priority in the development of the D). Xochiltepec White has long been rec- social, political, and religious institutions of Olmec style and its distribution. Here, we ognized as a possible export ware across the Olmec, analyzing its origin and spread is endeavor to move beyond this dichotomy, Mesoamerica, although of uncertain prove- central to understanding the development of which obscures understanding the complex nance (6, 9). complex society in Mesoamerica. The Ol- nature of the Olmec and its relationships The lack of the full repertoire of Olmec- mec style_s appearance at select sites outside with its neighbors. style motifs at any one site and the apparent the Gulf Coast has been used to argue that it In terms of Early Formative complexity, regional differences in expression of the Olmec arose in one area only and was exported or, recent investigations by Ann Cyphers and style have been cited as evidence that each alternatively, emerged from interactions among scattered regional chiefdoms (3). Here, we use instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) on archaeologically exca- vated or collected ceramics to fingerprint their provenience and exchange during the later half of the Early Formative period EÈ3450 to 2850 years before the present (yr B.P.), or 1500 to 900 B.C.E.^. The Olmec and Olmec style in Meso- america. Not all features referred to as the Olmec style may be linked with the archae- ological Gulf Coast Olmec; thus, we distin- guish between the terms Olmec culture and 1Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA. 2Department of Anthropology, California State University, Long Beach, CA 90840, USA. 3Research Reactor Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA. *To whom correspondence should be addressed. Fig. 1. Map of Early Formative regional centers, showing modern national borders and Mexico City E-mail: [email protected] for reference. Dashed lines show approximate boundaries of Mesoamerica. 1068 18 FEBRUARY 2005 VOL 307 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org R ESEARCH A RTICLES region contributed to the style, with no cen- with little prior occupation, grew to be as S2). Samples of raw clay include 160 clay tral origin of imagery (3). Ceramic data from large as contemporaneous San Jose´ Mogote samples from San Lorenzo, 25 from Oaxaca Oaxaca have shaped this debate for the past during the San Lorenzo horizon, serving as (12–14), 203 from the Mazata´n zone, 244 from 30 years, as archaeologists have used stylis- the center of a small chiefdom comparable to the Basin of Mexico, and 196 samples of raw tic analysis, as well as limited microscopic that in the Valley of Oaxaca (7). clay and modern/historic examples of pot- study of select sherds, to assert that villagers Ceramic data. Since the mid-1990s, a tery collected from pottery-making towns in created their own local set of Olmec-style wide variety of Early Formative ceramic the Valley of Oaxaca. Our data have been symbols (6, 10). This model concludes that, samples from regions of Mesoamerica have compared with an additional 527 archaeo- rather than importing Gulf Coast pottery and been submitted to the University of Missouri logical samples from later sites in the Valley iconography, Valley of Oaxaca potters pro- Research Reactor (MURR) for INAA (7, 12). of Oaxaca. duced and exported Olmec-style symbols made Although the 80 samples detailed in table S1 Clays are useful in sourcing analysis be- in distinctive gray-ware pottery, referred to as come primarily from Etlatongo and San cause they reflect the composition of local Delfina Fine Gray and Leandro Gray, across Lorenzo, the larger database includes a total geology. The clay available for pottery has Mesoamerica; recipients of this Oaxaca-made of 725 sourced archaeological pottery been documented in the three regions on pottery supposedly included the Gulf Coast samples from Tlapacoya (Basin of Mexico), which we focus: San Lorenzo, the Valley of Olmec (6, 11). To test this model, the first San Jose´ Mogote and other Valley of Oaxaca, and the Nochixtla´nValley(9, 13–16). author excavated Early Formative ceramics Oaxaca sites, Laguna Zope (Pacific Coast, Located in the Isthmian Saline Basin, San at the site of Etlatongo, in the Nochixtla´n Isthmus of Tehuantepec), Paso de la Amada Lorenzo sits on a salt dome located in Mio- Valley of the Mixteca Alta, northwest of the and other Mazata´n area sites (Soconusco re- cene sedimentary rocks, adjacent to Pleisto- Valley of Oaxaca (Fig. 1). Previously ex- gion, Pacific Coast of Chiapas), and San cene and Holocene alluvium deposited during plored by Roberto Za´rate Mora´n, the site, Isidro (Chiapas Central Depression) (table flooding. The sedimentary rocks provide ex- cellent pottery clays, including white-firing Fig. 2. Profile and exterior views clay (kaolin). Precambrian metamorphic rock, of Olmec pottery types pro- Cretaceous limestone, and Miocene volcanic duced at San Lorenzo. (A and B) ignimbrite are exposed in the Valley of Calzadas Carved pottery. [(A) is Oaxaca, along with Quaternary alluvium sample BLM060.] (C) Xochiltepec derived from these rocks. Clay was likely White (sample BLM042). (D) Conejo Orange-on-White (sam- obtained from weathered Precambrian ple BLM041). Adapted from (9); gneiss, schists, and the associated alluvium; drawings courtesy of M. Coe. kaolinite clays appear in scattered pockets (6). Similar rocks are exposed in the Nochixtla´n Valley, although Cretaceous lime- stone is more abundant. Tertiary volcanic rocks, alluvial clays, and residual clays (with a high calcium carbonate content formed from the decomposition of limestone parent materials) are available in the Etlatongo vicinity. All 80 pottery samples in table S1 have been recorded with photography and/or drawings, with all Etlatongo (n 0 42) and San Lorenzo (n 0 21) samples from well- documented archaeological contexts. Most of the ceramics in the larger database (table S2) Fig. 3. Olmec-style pottery exca- have not been illustrated, and some lack vated at Etlatongo. (A) Profile archaeological provenience information (13). and exterior of a bowl made with The sampling procedure was not random. San Lorenzo clay (sample Sherds were selected that would show both BLM003). (B)Reconstructionof a locally produced neckless jar local production and possible imports, (sample BLM006). including samples similar to Xochiltepec White and Conejo Orange-on-White. Thus, Olmec-style sherds are overrepresented at most sites in the sample. In selecting samples from Etlatongo, special attention was paid to the gray wares that may have been exported by the Valley of Oaxaca (Fig.