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

landscape, which is identifiable as being altered by humans; the second is the
conceptualized landscape, which includes natural features that may have been
intentionally modified and hold a form of cultural value (e.g., religious or artistic) by
members of the society; and the third landscape category is described as ideational, or
one that illustrates sociopolitical or economic activity or organization on a cognitive
level. At El Marquesillo, all three types appear to be represented. Through a
comprehensive, dynamic, regional landscape approach many of the difficulties that have
been encountered in the study of the Olmec paradigm can be alleviated. The following
section examines some of these obstacles, why they occurred, and how they became
enmeshed in the investigation of the Formative period Southern Gulf Lowlands.
Opening Investigations into the Olmec Paradigm
Many of the assumptions and resultant misinterpretations of the Formative period
data have a long tradition that began almost 150 years ago. In the early 20 th century,
stylistic similarities were noted in various art media across Mesoamerica that were
correlated with the Southern Gulf Lowland artistic suite (Covarrubias 1957; Guzmán
1934; Vaillant 1930, 1935). These attributions to the Gulf Coast led to a variety of
hypotheses that were built solely on inference and presumption. Along the Southern Gulf
Coast, a disjointed interpretation of the Formative period was emerging through uneven
and unstructured searches for monumental sculpture (Blom and LaFarge 1926; Stirling
1939, 1943, 1955, 1965). The perceived similarities in style and symbolism led to the
initial simplistic view of the Olmec as a static, monolithic entity that occupied a specific
geographical region for a particular length of time. This notion has created deeply
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