south. Although the four complexes vary in extent and volume, the two largest (Groups 2 and 3) are of comparable extent and volume, with neither clearly dominant over the other. Together, the replication of a basic spatial template, the lack of a single clearly dominant group, and the temporal overlap of the complexes, confirmed by excavations, argue for the institution of a more collective political organization with less centralization of power than in Middle Formative Tres Zapotes or other Olmec centers.
The Late Formative ruling coalition at Tres Zapotes also expressed the reduced concentration of power in the content of their monuments and the placement of earlier monuments in their urban landscape. Whereas colossal heads and stelae of the Middle Formative period emphasized the person of the ruler and his position as the central axis uniting heaven and earth, Late Formative sculptures from the Epi-Olmec capital do not emphasize personal rulership, and their distribution is less patterned than that of Middle Formative monuments (Pool et al. 2010b). Stelae A and F, representing late Olmec rulers, had their faces battered away in a manner suggesting their erasure from memory, while images of more distant ancestral rulers, the two colossal heads, were placed in the Tres Zapotes Plaza Groups at the eastern and western edges of the site (Group 1 and the Nestepe Group, respectively) facing north toward the long mounds from the south side of the plaza. Group 2 was built with the earlier basalt column enclosure and platform containing the greenstone axis mundi representation in a similar position on the south edge of the plaza. In this manner, Late Formative factional leaders incorporated ancient Olmec monuments symbolizing rulership into the urban landscape of their civic–ceremonial complexes to legitimate their claims to political and ideological authority (Pool et al. 2010b).
Similar principles were employed to construct the political landscape of Tres Zapotes’s hinterland. As the polity expanded in the Late Formative period, the countryside became more integrated with the center as four Tres Zapotes Plaza Group complexes were built in secondary centers at distances of 6–12 km from Tres Zapotes. At Cobata, the colossal head marked the eastern edge of the polity in a manner similar to the colossal heads in Tres Zapotes Plaza Groups at the eastern and western edges of the capital. Whether it was a rustic Middle Formative version of the Olmec urban tradition, as suggested already, or a later emulation of a remembered past (perhaps emphasized by the closed eyes of the monument – a common Mesoamerican way of indicating death), the head would have strongly referenced the colossal heads on view in the capital.
Conclusions
For over two millennia the Formative inhabitants of the southern Gulf lowlands shaped and were shaped by the diverse and dynamic landscape of shifting rivers, muddy swamps, upland savannahs, dripping rainforests, and occasionally violent volcanoes. The lowland tropical environment – with its distinctive flora, fauna, and risks of flood, storm, drought, and pests – informed humans’ understandings of the world and their place in it. Like humans everywhere, the Pre-Olmec inhabitants constructed a landscape filled with meaning. As they adopted maize and other crops, they began to burn forests and clear plots of land while still relying heavily on the wild bounty of the region. Undoubtedly these early inhabitants imbued particular places with meaning derived from events and beliefs told and retold over generations (e.g., Basso 1996). By 1700 BCE pottery and exotic greenstone joined rubber and other perishable materials as offerings that created and recreated the sacred spring at the base of the Manatí salt dome, and by 1450 BCE the growing cluster of settlements in the middle Coatzacoalcos valley had built up mounds in the seasonally marshy floodplain and were beginning to shape the plateau of San Lorenzo into what would soon become the urban seat of powerful rulers. These early Olmecs created a new way of communicating and imposing meaning on places with monumental sculptures in their capital and in the administrative centers subject to them, which ultimately would be used to honor sacred places and claim important resources in the Olmec countryside. In so doing the rulers and subjects of San Lorenzo created both a city on a hill and an urbanized countryside that expressed the dominion of the capital. Throughout their history Olmecs and their Epi-Olmec successors would continue to shape the landscape physically and conceptually in ways that reinforced the philosophy of their political leaders, whether through ostentatious display and disposal of massive offerings by monarchical rulers in the heart of the La Venta polity or the negotiated balance among governing factions at Tres Zapotes.
NOTES
1 1. All dates are in calendar years as opposed to uncalibrated radiocarbon years.
2 2. The initial estimate of 690 ha based on surface collections (Lunagómez 1995) was reduced to 500 ha by Symonds et al. (2002: Figure 4.4) but more recently increased to more than 700 ha based on auger tests (Arieta Baizabal and Cyphers 2017: 62).
3 3. Modern development makes an accurate estimate difficult. This figure for documented archaeological remains could be extended to a maximum of 400 ha if the entire salt dome island was occupied.
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