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

Cowgill (1993:754) summarizes the primary difficulties associated with the
discussion of warfare in Mesoamerica. He argues that there is an uncritical acceptance of
problematic and contradictory sources, and that there is a tendency to not consider the
diversity within these societies. These lines of reasoning are particularly true in the case
of the Gulf Olmec, and Coe and Diehl (1980:392) admit that warfare can only be
inferred. I find the evidence expressed in these arguments for warfare tenuous. Much of
the inference of war is derived from what are interpreted as depictions of “symbolic
warfare” sculpted on stone monuments (Borstein 2001; Reilly and Garber 2003),
although other tenable alternatives are possible. To me, it is unusual that a school of
artisans as talented as those of the Gulf Coast Olmec, known for their ability to produce
lifelike and expressive illustrations, did not compose a corpus of clear, unambiguous
depictions of warfare. This lack of imagery is especially puzzling if warfare or military
dominance was indeed the reason for the emergence or expansion of their authority.
Subsistence Systems and Complex Society
Numerous variations of social theory have developed from an agricultural
perspective. For example, in his survey of the science of culture, Harris (1979) used the
Olmec to associate maize agriculture with the foundation upon which chiefdoms were
founded and how its continued development led to more complex levels of social
organization. Moseley and Willey (1973:466), in their reevaluation of Aspero, Peru, and
its agricultural transition, offer the San Lorenzo Olmec as an example of development
from sedentary non-agricultural society to one of emergent agriculture in Mesoamerica.
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