Stoned, For All Eternity: Part Three

A great deal has been written about and made much of in alternative archaeology books about how and why our technologically primitive ancestors were able to carve out, transport and erect massive multi-ton stone blocks into megalithic monuments of well, monumental size. The implication is that since there is no doubting the existence of these structures, our ancestors must of in fact possessed an advanced technology or had assistance from those who did (i.e. – ‘ancient astronauts’). That runs contrary to the standard model of scholarly archaeology. But the questions remain. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Appendix: A few notable megalithic monuments.

1) Some unfinished in-situ megaliths.

*Baalbek (Lebanon) has two unfinished stones weighing in at 1000 to 1250 tons apiece.

*There’s an unfinished Egyptian obelisk at Assuan that’s all up comes to roughly 1100 tons.

2) Some finished and transported megaliths.

Europe

*Stonehenge: some stones are up to 40 tons.

*The Avebury stone circle, England, has as its largest stone one over 40 tons.

*The famous fortress of Mycenae, Greece has stones close to 100 tons in weight.

*The Parthenon in Athens, Greece has some of its largest stones weighing in at 10 tons.

Pacific Region

*Those Easter Island (Rapa Nui to the locals) Moai can weigh up to 70, even one up to 86 tons.

Ancient Egypt

*The Colossi of Memnon are two Egyptian statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III coming in at 700 tons each.

*Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great) was not shy about erecting statues to honour himself. One of his numerous dozens of monumental statues commissioned to image self (at Luxor) – 100 tons worth of stone. But that’s featherweight class.

*Ramesses II was only just getting warmed up. There’s a statue at Thebes, Egypt, part of the Ramessum, the mortuary temple of the pharaoh in question, of 1000 tons. Now that’s heavyweight status.

*Egyptian obelisks weren’t miniscule. There’s one at 227 tons (Luxor); one at 328 tons (Karnak).

*Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt is well known as overkill when it comes to constructing a tomb. Though the average weight of each stone block is ‘only’ 2.5 tons, the largest slabs comprising the burial chamber, come in at 80 tons.

*Apart from the Great Pyramid, other Egyptian pyramids, in fact most, if not all other, Egyptian pyramids have some monolithic blocks of over 20 tons, including monolithic roof slabs, plugs and burial vaults, some of which weigh in at over 100 tons.

South and Central America

*Those well known but mysterious Olmec heads in Mesoamerica aren’t trivial works when carved down to some 50 tons all up.

*The Inca city of Machu Picchu, Peru has large stones part and parcel of its construction weighing in from 20 to 50 tons apeice.

*There’s a very famous Aztec calendar stone at Tenochtitlan, Mexico that weighs considerably more than the wall calendar you hang up at home. Weight, 24 tons.

*Palenque, Mexico is a famous Mayan site, especially thanks to Erich Von Daniken. The largest stones on site weigh 12 to 15 tons.

Further suggested readings

Childress, David Hatcher; Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients; Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton, Illinois; 2000:

De Camp, L. Sprague; The Ancient Engineers; Ballantine Books, New York; 1974:

De Camp, L. Sprague & De Camp; Catherine C; Citadels of Mystery; Fontana/Collins, London; 1972:

Hancock, Graham; Fingerprints of the Gods: A Quest for the Beginning and the End; Mandarin, London; 1996:

Hancock, Graham & Faiia, Santha; Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the Lost Civilization; Penguin Books, London; 1999:

National Geographic Society; Mysteries of Mankind: Earth’s Unexplained Landmarks; National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.; 1992:

National Geographic Society; Mysteries of the Ancient World; National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.; 1979:

Parry, Dick; Engineering the Ancient World; Sutton Publishing, U.K.; 2005:

Von Daniken, Erich; Chariots of the Gods?; Souvenir Press, London; 1969:

Von Daniken, Erich; Gods from Outer Space; Souvenir Press, London; 1970:

Further viewings:

NOVA; Secrets of Lost Empires; PBS/WGBH, Boston; 2006:

NOVA; Secrets of Lost Empires II; PBS/WGBH, Boston; 2008:

There’s also been dozens of books/videos written/produced specifically about the archaeological mysteries of Stonehenge, ancient Egyptian monuments including the pyramids, Easter Island, the ruins of Mesoamerica and South America, etc. Consult your local library.

Stoned, For All Eternity: Part Two

A great deal has been written about and made much of in alternative archaeology books about how and why our technologically primitive ancestors were able to carve out, transport and erect massive multi-ton stone blocks into megalithic monuments of well, monumental size. The implication is that since there is no doubting the existence of these structures, our ancestors must of in fact possessed an advanced technology or had assistance from those who did (i.e. – ‘ancient astronauts’). That runs contrary to the standard model of scholarly archaeology. But the questions remain. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Here are some alt-archaeological theories.

One theory sometimes seen in alt-archaeological tomes is that these massive blocks didn’t start out as massive blocks, just like a brick doesn’t start out as a brick, but rather they were poured into place, in a mould, like concrete or cement. Sorry, but modern petrologists’ could easily detect such. Often in fact the quarry from where the stone originated can be precisely identified, though that often raises the question then of transport, since the distances twixt quarry site and construction site can be hundreds of miles. That’s an issue that applies to Stonehenge as well as some of the stonework for the Giza pyramids. 

If you really want to go far-out, star-scout, let’s try antigravity! Anti-gravity is only available in one form, dark energy. Dark energy is that mysterious antigravity force that’s causing the expanding Universe to keep on expanding at ever faster and faster rates, in defiance of gravity which should slow the expansion rate down. Alas, dark energy, which while dominant over the scale of the entire Universe, is trivial locally relative to Earth’s intense gravity field.

Alt-archaeology texts are full of references to sound energy that levitates (negates gravity) and thus massive blocks of stone can be floated around and put into place even with just the oomph of an infant, just by making the appropriate sound at the appropriate level.. Sound of course can be focused. We all know and appreciate the science of acoustics in theatres. Sound can shatter objects, well at least relatively fragile objects like wine glasses when subjected to the professional projections of the trained human voice (or equivalent). However, if you crunch the numbers, the energy required to negate gravity is way outside the realm of which sound energy can muster. Considering the cacophony of sounds the human race produces daily, you’d think that all the relevant elements would come together somewhere, sometime and ‘just so’ as to produce levitation in something, levitation observed and photographed for the record. Alas, not so. 

Jigsaw Puzzles

In some constructions, it’s not just a matter of manipulating massive but irregular stone blocks but fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle, results that are immediately apparent at sites around the world, like those from the Incan Empire. Precision carving in stone using only other stone or copper tools is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not simple; it’s extremely exhausting and time consuming work. Double that when all your blocks aren’t a standard square block size and shape.

What Do Our Ancestors Say?

Pity that although the ancients left all manner of images behind of their daily lives and culture, I find it amazing that despite all of those multi-thousands of images from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Americas, etc. not one shows an actual half-finished or partly constructed monument, like a pyramid, or a temple like the Parthenon that’s under construction, or whatever. That’s highly anomalous IMHO, though there are images of ancient Egyptians transporting massive stone blocks.

However, even some of those ancient cultures were puzzled as to how their even more ancient ancestors achieved these megalithic ‘missions impossible’.

There’s something very odd when the natural descendents of ‘primitive’ natives resort to tales akin to sci-fi or science-fantasy to account for how their ancestors constructed, transported and erected massive stone monoliths.

Easter Islanders say that their Moai statues walked by themselves from quarry to their final resting (actually standing) place. Who am I to argue with first hand or on-the-spot observations, except Thor Heyerdahl’s “Aku-Aku” team accomplished the same with less elegant but with pure grunt power. Walking stone statues are just a bit too far into the “Twilight Zone” for comfort. Actually for some reason Easter Islanders at some point downed their stone tools and abandoned their statue constructions for reasons not entirely clear other than priorities altered. The abandoned unfinished statues can still be seen today, lying in place, now long neglected.

Also in the Pacific region, Nan Modal is an ancient city of about 0.75 square kilometres off the coast of the island of Pohnpei in what’s today termed Micronesia. The city is comprised of artificial islands criss-crossed by canals, and thus often referred to as the Venice of the Pacific. Those ‘islands’ however are built up of massive megalithic stone walls up to 25 feet high. How so? Well the stones were carried on site on the backs of dragons apparently. To be honest, that makes as much sense as anything else.

I noted above that allegedly sound could levitate massive stone blocks. That theory or observation is found in both South America and ancient Egypt – massive stones are somehow lifted and transported by sound. I still think that’s highly suspect and I think scientists would need an actual modern-day demonstration. I know I would.

Tentative Conclusions

As I noted above, it’s not the caving or the transport that’s the real issue, nor going from the horizontal to the vertical that’s a real problem, rather the issue is lifting massive stones straight up that I especially puzzle over.

The puzzlement relates to our own use of stones in building projects. We could I guess, if we wanted to, build our buildings out of mega-ton blocks of stone. But we don’t. Your house, if it contains building stones at all, are stones that are probably akin to weights of just several pounds, maybe dozens of pounds; hardly tons.

So do we have a major mystery here? Well yes, especially when compared to modern society as noted immediately above. In our modern high-tech age, when we do use stone as a construction material, it’s in manageable bits and pieces. We don’t build our homes or office buildings or ballparks or monuments out of multi-ton to multi-hundred ton stone blocks as the ancients did. But when duty called, like when Abu Simbel had to be relocated to a higher elevation when the Aswan High Dam was constructed giving rise to Lake Nasser and the flooding of the historical site, even using modern technology it was still a major and massive effort. 

A Possible Solution

Perhaps we can kill two anomalous birds with one hypothetical stone.

Universal One: As we note, from the Americas (Mesoamerica and South America at least); throughout Europe and the Near and Middle East, Egypt and other parts of Africa, even unto Asia and the Pacific region, there are ancient megalithic constructions using stone blocks in the multi mega-ton range. How did the ancients carve, transport, raise and position such massive stone blocks?

Universal Two: Also around the world, there’s a universal theme of giants, from the Cyclopes in Greco-Roman cultures, to Biblical giants to – well you name the culture and I’ll guarantee they will have giants as a core element in their mythologies. For samplers, here’s just a partial list of giants. Well there’s Angrboda (Norse), Argos (Greek), Balor (Irish), Biloko (Zaire), Bungisngis (Philippines), the Cyclopes (Greek), Geryon (Greek), the Gigantes (Greek), Goliath (Biblical), Grendel (Anglo-Saxon), the Hecatonchires (Greek), Hrungnir (Norse), Humbaba (Mesopotamia), the Nephilim (Biblical), Skrymir (Norse), Suttung (Norse), Talos (Greek), the Titans (Greek), and Ymir (Norse). Further, you have all manner of giant trolls and ogres (Scandinavian), various giant apemen like the Yeti and Bigfoot/Sasquatch and numerous others, as well as the Giants of Cornwall (led by Gogmagog).

Well, what’s ‘mission: impossible’ for a young child, is possible for an adult; what’s ‘mission: impossible’ for adult humans might be possible for a giant(s). A giant twice as large as a typical human will have eight times the muscle power, since muscles are 3-D, doubling in length, width and height; and thusly 2 x 2 x 2 = 8.

What Do Our Ancestors Say Revisited?

Ancient Greeks often attributed various massive stone constructions to the Cyclopes, as an example. Such massive structures are termed the Cyclopean walls since the Cyclopes and only the Cyclopes could have built these structures. Perseus had them responsible for building the walls of Mycenae, including the Lion Gate; Proitos attributed them building the walls of Tiryns. The medieval Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus cited the Roman ruins as evidence that giants must once have walked the Earth. And who built the Giant’s Causeway on the Northern Irish Coast?

Is this too far out? I’m open to other suggestions, but at least it doesn’t require high-tech alien assistance, unless of course those worldwide mythological giants, like the Cyclopes, were aliens!

To be continued…

Stoned, For All Eternity: Part One

A great deal has been written about and made much of in alternative archaeology books about how and why our technologically primitive ancestors were able to carve out, transport and erect massive multi-ton stone blocks into megalithic monuments of well, monumental size. The implication is that since there is no doubting the existence of these structures, our ancestors must of in fact possessed an advanced technology or had assistance from those who did (i.e. – ‘ancient astronauts’). That runs contrary to the standard model of scholarly archaeology. But the questions remain. 

Perhaps I’d better say what I mean by massive multi-ton stone blocks. I mean stones that are at least several tons in weight, up to the largest known carved (but still in-situ and unused) stone block weighing in at roughly 1250 tons. That’s not the record however for there is, apparently, a stele base in China that weighs in at 16,250 tons. I mean these are stones that aren’t trivial to toss around, even today. And while not all major continents and countries have megalithic stone monuments, like North America (USA & Canada) or Australia (including New Zealand) that still leaves a lot of places, and well known places, that do.

How and why these megaliths were constructed is no trivial matter. For our ancestors to go to such lengths and expend such efforts, well these stone monuments were obviously very important to them, and it’s important to us to figure out how and why they did it. Using large stone blocks instead of wood or even small stone blocks or bricks must have served a purpose despite the greater hardships involved. So, why did our ancient ancestors need large stones; and how did they handle them?

As to the why, presumably, for starters, if you decide to use stone, then it’s important enough a material serving a purpose(s) that necessitates lasting for all practical purposes an ‘eternity’. If you build something to last, at least back then, you use stone, the larger the better. But for what purpose did the ancients need such megalithic giants?

Issues Arising: Purpose

These ancient societies or cultures spent an awful lot of resources to build things that were relatively peripheral to their basic needs. The Easter Islanders could survive without those Moai statues; ancient Egypt would still have been a ‘superpower’ even without those pyramids, the Giza Sphinx, massive statues of some New Kingdom pharaohs (like Ramesses II - often called Ramesses the Great), stele and obelisks. The Parthenon in Athens was just a shrine to one of the Greek deities (Athena), and similar observations could be extended to the thousands of other monumental megalithic temples and monuments around the world which were mainly ceremonial in function.

It’s difficult to figure out how Stonehenge contributed to the basic survival needs of the local population – you don’t need to construct something of that magnitude just to tell you what season it is! If you need to mark, say the Summer Solstice, all you need have is a traditionally and permanently well marked and easily identified Point A, where you can observe some fixed structure like a rock on the Horizon, that’s Point B, and when the Sun arises directly over Point B, that’s the longest day of the year. There’s no need to engage in any sort of backbreaking toil or construction whatever. 

If a society can afford to spend time and effort and money on secondary projects, say like in modern society various public art works compared to primary projects like roads (transport), schools (education) and hospitals (health care), then you have to conclude that that society was well off given that they could divert basic resources from primary projects to undertake projects of a secondary nature. Either that, or that which looks to us as relatively trivial or unimportant like Stonehenge or Carnac (Brittany, France) or those Easter Island statues or the Sphinx actually held a primary function incomprehensible to us but which rivalled in importance housing and insuring adequate food supplies and similar things vital to their day-to-day survival.

Issues Arising: Logistics

There’s also the logistics problem. You need a large workforce that had to be fed and clothed and housed and cared for, especially fed. There wasn’t exactly a nearby supermarket where endless supplies could be purchased. Further, while employed on these quarrying, transporting and construction projects the workers couldn’t be gainfully employed elsewhere to provide basics like hunting and gathering for food or even tending to domesticated livestock and agricultural crops. The workers couldn’t have been used for serving in the army, or any other useful and necessary task. All of this carving, transporting and construction were not just busy work designed to keep the rabble off the streets and out of trouble, and slave labour wasn’t usually in vogue either, contrary to many popular Hollywood images. Of course in the case of the Giza Sphinx, it was carved, but wasn’t transported, nor constructed per say. Still, the logistics in caving that massive stone statue from a rock outcrop would have been enormous, and the reason(s) for doing so of vast importance to the powers-that-be.

Issues Arising: Ways and Means: The How!

Though our focus and interest is often on the construction phase, as in how was that done, that’s usually just one-third of the hard yards. Take those 2.3 million blocks that make up the Great Pyramid at Giza. Phase One: each block had to be carved to size. You just didn’t hack out rocks at random and put them in place. That carving alone is hard yakka and helped keep up a state of full employment.  Hard yakka Phase Two was transporting those carved blocks from the various quarries – some local, some not – to action city, the Giza Plateau. More full employment. The how in Phase One and Two isn’t usually all that mysterious – just bloody hard backbreaking work. Anyway, back to the construction – Phase Three.

To me the major mystery is not so much how you get something from the horizontal to the vertical, like an obelisk, (that was demonstrated on the NOVA TV series “Secrets of Lost Empires”), but how you get a massive multi-ton stone block raised straight up, say 20 to 30 to 40 or more feet to act as a lintel, like those at Stonehenge or on all those Greco-Roman and Egyptian temples, like say the Parthenon. One can always conceive of building sand or dirt ramps to haul massive lintels upwards into place, hence removing the sand or dirt after-the-fact, but if you think about it, such infrastructure is a far more labour intensive and an all-round major project in its own right. For example, constructing a sand ramp to haul those multi-ton stone blocks for the Giza pyramids would require a greater volume of material to be put into place (and of course later removed) than that of the volume of material required to build the pyramid in question in the first place. Of course if the project is that important, and if there is just no other way – well there’s always those hard options.

To illustrate as an example of just how bad our knowledge of our remote ancient ancestors really is, here’s a trilogy of extracts from classical scholar Nigel Rodgers in his text “The Ancient Greek World: People and Places” (2010):

“[T]he Greeks relied on their intellectual powers and their remarkably skilled craftsmanship to erect their buildings. Few details survive of their actual building techniques, however.”

“Cranes were almost certainly used to help raise the masonry up to the temples during construction, although no traces of such machinery have been found.”

“How the Athenians assembled these temples, and indeed housed and fed the large, highly skilled workforce required to build them, so efficiently is unknown.” 

So, now let’s look at alternatives as offered in some alt-archaeological texts.  

To be continued…

The Olmecs: An Enigma Wrapped In a Mystery: Part Two

When it comes to the ancient civilizations in the Americas, well the Amerindians like the Anasazi at Mesa Verde come to mind; even more so the Aztecs, the Incas, and the Mayans. But perhaps the most interesting of all, a culture that normally registers on the peripheral vision of our knowledge of all things Mesoamerican, is that of the Olmecs. Olmec society, civilization and culture is famous for several things: their mysterious origins and demise; their obsession with jade; their cult of the Were-Jaguar; and last, but not least, those monumental ‘African’ stone head carvings. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

OLMEC WRITINGS

The Olmecs left behind no written history that we can understand. Their glyphs carved into their stone monuments, sculptures, monoliths, etc. remain indecipherable. We need an Olmec equivalent of the Egyptian Rosetta Stone! Further, there are no parallels with the writings of later Mesoamerican cultures. We’re stuck between that rock and that hard place. So, alas and alack, there’s nothing comprehensible to tell us, for example, how they carved, transported and built their megalithic monuments/stone heads or why they did so.

OLMEC STONE HEADS

Olmec culture is probably most famous for all those nearly round-as-a-ball stone heads of the masculine gender that always tend to feature prominently whenever you read about the Olmecs. These were not small stone statues of the head only, but massive sculptures up to over three meters (over 10 feet) in height and weighing over 20 tons (though I’ve seen estimates of up to 50 tons for the largest of the large). Over 20 stone heads, or parts of heads, are now known; there’s probably more still buried within the jungle. Further, no two heads are clones. While they all appear similar, each is unique in its own way. Though bland today, in their heyday, they were apparently painted and brightly decorated.

These stone heads are made of basalt, a rather dense and hard volcanic rock. Not the easiest of material to carve. Further, the raw parent multi-ton basalt blocks had to be imported from the Tuxtlas Mountains – hauled over land and water presumably by human muscle power from roughly 37 miles to over 90 miles away, depending on what eventual site they had to go to, and they have been found at all four major Olmec politico-religious sites. It would have been no easy task muscling multi-ton stone blocks by hand through steamy, swampy tropical jungle, though nobody knows for absolute certain how those blocks got from source to site, since the Olmecs left behind no ‘how-to’ manuals. 

The immediate first, through to at least the tenth impression you get when viewing these Olmec stone heads is without question ‘African’. That of course doesn’t make the impression correct, but first impressions are lasting ones and usually have some sort of logical basis behind them.

Now the standard model of traditional Mesoamerican archaeology nixes any interaction between Central America and Africa before the birth of Christ (and for quite some considerable time thereafter too). Yet these heads still look ‘African’. There’s no getting around that.

Further, these Olmec stone heads have facial images that look nothing like the jade masks or heads of various carved figurines, etc. (see below).

Regardless, whose heads and faces are they? Are they portraits in stone of Olmec rulers? While that’s the generally accepted idea, no one really knows for absolute sure. And though many other cultures have carved, transported and erected massive statues, like the Easter Islanders and obviously the ancient Egyptians and Greco-Romans, they didn’t focus on exclusively chin-up statues. The Olmecs seem to be pretty unique in monumental head-only representations.

OLMECS’ JADE CULTURE

Some ancient civilizations are known for their works of stonemasonry or artifacts of silver and gold (or electrum – an amalgamation of both) or perhaps amber, textiles/weaving, metallurgy, pottery/ceramics, etc.  The Olmecs were a jade culture. However, they had to trade for jade over long distances, obtaining over time vast quantities which they then carved into all sorts of ornamentations, masks, small sculptures and figurines, etc. However, as noted above, carvings in jade of masks or facial features are not similar to those of the very large basaltic stone heads. That’s just yet another puzzle when it comes to figuring out what made the Olmec’s tick. 

When it comes to art works, the Olmecs were also known for their complex cave paintings.

OLMEC RELIGION: THE WERE-JAGUAR CULT

Like all societies, the Olmecs had their deities. Olmec gods tended to be a hybrid combination of human, avian, reptilian but most of all feline forms, especially the jaguar, in various and often bewildering combinations. Most prominent of these was the Were-Jaguar, often depicted as human babies with jaguar-like faces. Now that’s weird! Many Olmec images show humans (shamans presumably) shape-shifting into jaguars and vice versa. It was their ability to perform a transition from the natural world to the supernatural and back again. At least that’s the acceptable interpretation.

There’s no question that the jaguar was the major animal predator in Mesoamerica, and thus it’s not surprising that the jaguar featured prominently in pre-Columbian societies, and adoption of jaguar motifs by the ruling elite was probably used to reinforce or validate leadership. However, that alone hardly explains the Were-Jaguar cult and the possible origins of the cult have engaged scholars for over a half century. The issue has yet to be resolved.

Apart from the cult of the Were-Jaguar, Olmecs were the first to sculpture a ‘feathered serpent’, made a prominent cult deity figure in its own right as Quetzalcoatl by the Aztecs.

THE OLMECS: SUMMARY

*Where did they come from and where did they vanish to?

*Why did Mesoamerica’s ‘Mother’ culture apparently vanish into thin air, and very suddenly at that?

*Why so few Olmec bodies and no kitchen middens?

*Will we ever figure out their ‘writings’? That would surely shed much needed light on their society.

*That shape-shifting Were-Jaguar religious cult has no real further parallels in Mesoamerica. What was their philosophy behind the cult? 

*Most obviously, what were the ways and means of carving and transporting those massive ‘African’ stone heads? And why just heads from the chin up instead of fully fledged human statues like one finds in other ancient cultures?

*What’s the African connection, if indeed there is any African connection?

As I said, the Olmecs are indeed an enigma wrapped up in a mystery.

The Olmecs: An Enigma Wrapped In a Mystery: Part One

When it comes to the ancient civilizations in the Americas, well the Amerindians like the Anasazi at Mesa Verde come to mind; even more so the Aztecs, the Incas, and the Mayans. But perhaps the most interesting of all, a culture that normally registers on the peripheral vision of our knowledge of all things Mesoamerican, is that of the Olmecs. Olmec society, civilization and culture is famous for several things: their mysterious origins and demise; their obsession with jade; their cult of the Were-Jaguar; and last, but not least, those monumental ‘African’ stone head carvings. 

Once upon a time, some 3300 years or so before you were conceived of in anyone’s philosophy, a motley band of nomads that had many generations previously crossed over into North America from Asia at the height of the last Ice Age, found their way into what’s today known as the tropical lowlands of the eastern coastal region of Mexico. That motley band of nomads settled down and became the first great civilization of the New World – the Olmecs. They are classified by scholars as inhabiting the Middle Pre-Classic Period of the America’s ancient history. Early Pre-Classic refers to those prehistoric hunter-gatherers and the transition to those early and very small primitive agricultural settlements.

OLMEC BASICS

The Olmecs were the first of the great Mesoamerican civilizations, sometimes referred to as the Mother of all subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations.

They survived, even thrived from roughly 1200 BC to about 400 BC in the southern Gulf Coast area of Mexico, in an area now referred to as the states of Veracruz and Tabasco.

OLMEC POPULATION CENTRES

Though the Olmecs were primarily an agricultural society (we all have to eat), they did construct various high density metropolitan population centers, actually more ritual-based politico-religious centers, all with massive monuments including pyramids. The trilogy of those major centers were

*San Lorenzo (approximately 1200 – 900 BC). That site was eventually abandoned and they moved to La Venta, though there’s probably some degree of overlap between the two.

*La Venta (approximately 900 – 400 BC). This is the Olmec site best known and documented. It was actually on an island located within the Tonala River. The estimated population of La Venta has been estimated at some 18,000 individuals. Okay, so Mexico City it’s not, but that’s not a bad ‘city’ for the times.

*Tres Zapotes (approximately 900 BC). The 900 BC date is again a beginnings coinciding with the decline of San Lorenzo. There’s no termination date because other cultures inhabited the site after the Olmec civilization went the way of the dodo.

Sometimes there’s also a mention of Laguna de les Cerros as a major Olmec site.

These Olmec politico-religious sites were built under their rulers on a grand enough scale that one can draw parallels with ancient Egyptian monuments under their pharaohs. In other words, Olmec ‘cities’ were impressive for the times.

OLMEC PEOPLE

The Olmecs were named “The Olmecs” actually by the Aztecs as “People of the land of the rubber trees”. Though named by the Aztecs, the Aztecs didn’t appear on the horizon till some 1400 years later on down the track. So their “Olmecs” were as much an enigma wrapped up in a mystery to them as the Olmecs remain and are to us, as we shall see. 

The Olmecs did those normal everyday things you associate with nearly any ancient civilization – farm the land, build the buildings, engage in warfare, played ball games, practiced their religion with religious ceremonies that apparently included human sacrifices and bloodletting, in this case to their Jaguar-God and other deities.

All these activities were accomplished by the way without the wheel or any beasts of burden.

One question immediately springs to mind. Where did they come from? They certainly appeared very suddenly all wrapped up in a civilized box as a major culture. The next most obvious question is where did they disappear to since there’s no longer any ethnic group of people on Planet Earth we can call Olmecs? They disappeared from the scene just as quickly as they initially appeared. It appears as it they just melted away into surrounding areas, abandoning their ritual centres and settlements and way of life, losing all touch for all time with their unique identity. That said, it’s also obvious that these people’s culture certainly had a major influence on other Mesoamerican societies that followed like the Maya.

As to why the Olmec civilization collapsed, well the cause isn’t known, and scholars have speculated perhaps this and perhaps that and perhaps the next thing. Your guess at this stage is probably equally as valid. But whatever caused their demise, it happened very quickly.

OLMEC BODIES

Apart from just a very few human remains that have been found – just the bones from two, maybe three young individuals - if any major discoveries of bodies (skeletons, corpses or mummies), found in graves, tombs or cemeteries and connected with the Olmec civilization have been made, I’m unaware of them. There is on record a stone burial chamber, a sarcophagus and basalt tombs, but apparently no bodies. That alone is fairly anomalous when it comes down to putting a human face on an ancient culture – think of those Egyptian mummies, or those bog corpses oft discovered in northern Europe. Without skulls you can’t do forensic facial reconstructions to get an idea of what these people looked like. Without skeletons you’ve little idea of their average size and general state of health and fitness – what sorts of diseases and injuries might have been commonplace.

Also lacking are all those favourite remains that tell archaeologists so much about the life and times of a society – garbage dumps. There are no associated kitchen middens or refuse sites that have been located and excavated. 

To be continued…

All Things Natural History: Introduction

Hi there everybody. In this, my latest blog, the accent will be on natural history; the natural and social sciences like biology and anthropology and archaeology and similar sorts of things. Not really included here are the hard physical sciences. For those, see my blogs "All things natural philosophy", and "All things extraterrestrial". For religion, see my "All things irreligious".