Complexity, Interaction, and Epistemology: Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and Olmecs in Early Formative Mesoamerica

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 between Olmec-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 relationships may be characterized more by acquisition between regions, with San Lorenzo as a superordinate center.

Early evidence of the ballgame in Oaxaca, Mexico

“…Subsequent petrographic analyses have supported the results of the INAA study (21), contradicting one petrographic study (22) that sought to overturn the INAA study's results on the basis of an incomplete understanding of Gulf Coast geology (19). Additional INAA suggests that adjacent regions in Oaxaca may have exchanged vessels with extremely local designs, as opposed to Olmec-style ones, but the data for the one sherd in question do not match the confidence levels of the initial INAA study (17). On the basis of these compositional studies, the Olmec were deeply embedded in the creation and exchange of material displaying complex iconography and underlying cosmology.…”

“…The Olmecs' level of socio-political complexity and impact on other contemporaneous societies remains highly contested (17)(18)(19). Recent chemical analyses through Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) have documented that ceramic vessels with and without Olmec-style iconography were crafted and disseminated by the San Lorenzo Olmec to chiefly societies in Central Mexico, Oaxaca, and Soconusco (20).…”

“…During the Cruz B phase, Etlatongo was probably comparable in terms of socio-political organization to contemporaneous San José Mogote. Extensive evidence of interregional interaction has also been documented at Etlatongo; in fact, the more frequent types of foreign pottery suggest that Etlatongo may have had greater articulation with the Olmec than did the Valley of Oaxaca (17,20,37).…”

From “1-Eye” to Bruce Byland: Literate Societies and Integrative Approaches in Oaxaca

“…The emergent hereditary elite classes in these regions were connected through long-distance trade networks in which ideas, styles, and exotic goods, such as shell, jade, and obsidian, circulated in a sweeping pattern that would continue throughout much of Mesoamerican history. Such developments might have been further ushered in by economic and ideological contacts with the Olmecs on the Gulf Coast and the Maya in Chiapas and Guatemala, who shared much of the same early iconography with Oaxaca (Blomster 2004(Blomster , 2010Flannery 1976;Joyce 2013;Joyce et al 1998;Marcus and Flannery 1996;Winter 1994a;Whittington and Workinger, chapter 9, this volume).…”

“…In recent years, the historically minded "postprocessual" turn in archaeology has clearly influenced the way integrative research has been conducted in Oaxaca. Practice theory, agency, gender, and subaltern studies have all introduced more sophisticated frameworks of analysis, shifting the focus from earlier ecological determinism to the subtle interactions between human actors and the larger system, and toward place-specific contextual research (Blomster 2008a(Blomster , 2008b(Blomster , 2010Geurds 2007;Hamann 2008;Joyce 2010;McCafferty and McCafferty 1994;Zeitlin 2005;Zeitlin, chapter 14, this volume). While the persona-oriented inscriptions had sparked interest in embodied "agents" since the beginning of integrative research in Oaxaca, a growing attention is now given to the active role of "commoners' agency" in the shaping of those literate societies ( Joyce 2008( Joyce , 2010Joyce et al 2001).…”