An Unexplored Realm in the Heartland of the Southern Gulf ... - Famsi

its introduction to Mesoamerican archaeology more than a century ago (Beyer 1927; Paso
y Troncoso 1939; Saville 1929). This situation has led Pye and Clark (2000:12) to assert
that, “[t]he problem, and the reason for some substantive, continuing controversies, is that
the term Olmec serves too many masters and is thus inherently ambiguous.” In a broad
sense, this dissertation represents a critical examination of the use of the term Olmec as it
has been applied to the ancient Formative period inhabitants of the Southern Gulf
Lowlands of Veracruz and Tabasco, Mexico.
The ambiguity, as I see it, in the use of the term Gulf Coast Olmec is analogous to
another situation in social theory that resulted in similar problems. A comparable
dilemma arose with the introduction and evolution of the terms “band, tribe, and
chiefdom.” Developed primarily through the work of Sahlins and Service (1968, 1960,
1962) along with Fried (1967), these terms became the consensus typology for a social
evolutionary model not only among cultural anthropologists, but archaeologists as well
(Drennan 1987; Hayden 1995b). Haas (1998:15) points out the problems, “the models of
Service and Fried [became] a handy tool to pigeonhole prehistoric cultures into
meaningful anthropological categories.” The ease with which this classification could be
assumed and exploited led to its misuse and abuse. Attribution of an evolutionary stage or
type of political organization, such as egalitarian band or ranked chiefdom, to a society
was routinely taken to imply that the entire spectrum of elements associated with the
definition was present, even if supporting evidence was not encountered (Spencer 1987;
Yoffee 2005). Moreover, on a conceptual basis, the standard terminology of band, tribe,
and chiefdom does not permit qualitative distinctions to be made between levels of
organizational structure and political power that may be inherent in different social
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