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

Maya are lineal descendents of the Olmec. He sees a shifting of population sites from the
Gulf Coast to the lowlands of the Guatemalan Petén.
Meggers (1975, 1976) maintains that the Olmec are the earliest Mesoamerica
civilization whose art, iconography, and technology were the foundation for all other
Mesoamerican cultures. She suggests that their sudden appearance as a fully developed
complex society, and the rapid dispersion of advanced traits across Mesoamerica, suggest
diffusion from elsewhere in the world. Meggers makes her case based on stylistic
similarities of the more ancient Shang Culture of China, and posits that they are the true
founders of the Olmec. Schneider (1977) adds what he considers to be further support for
claims of ancient transpacific contact between the Chinese Shang and the Gulf Coast
Olmec at around 1200 BC. He contends that the diffusion of culture by the Chinese was
directly responsible for the development of complex society in the New World,
specifically along the Southern Gulf Coast. Schneider asserts that the underlying theory
to explain diffusion is actually more important than any facts that may be present.
Mundkur (1976:437-439), in his attempt to link the art-styles and ideologies of Asia to
the cultures of the New World, identifies the Southern Gulf Lowlands as the Heartland of
the Formative period Olmec and portrays them as recipients of Asian characteristics.
Referring to the San Lorenzo-La Venta Olmec as an example of an “occupational
shift” brought about by climatic causal agents, Gunn and Adams (1981:94) suggest an
unbroken cultural continuity between the two sites. They also identify climatic changes
that would have been factors in the development of cultural complexity. Gunn and
Adams note the end of the San Lorenzo dominance occurred at the same time as a “cold
period.” Spatial considerations would seem to question how climate factors would affect
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