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

Introduction
Chapter 2. The Formative Period in the Southern Gulf Lowlands
At the 2006 Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting in San Juan,
Puerto Rico, a gathering of the Mesoamerican Formative period researchers took place in
the symposium, The Olmec and Their Early Formative Neighbors (SAA 2006:55-56).
Most participants acknowledged that accurate chronology was a significant problem in
Formative period studies. Clark’s (2006) assessment that “without good chronology, we
have nothing” would seem obvious but, outside of a relatively small group of
investigators, the distinction between chronological segments of the Formative period
have been merged, blurred, or disregarded. This lack of chronology building and the
inattention given to its dynamic nature underlies many common misconceptions, as
discussed in the previous chapter. It has resulted in the interpretation of the Formative
inhabitants of the Southern Gulf Lowlands as what Diehl (2004:14) laments is “a single
generic culture.”
Theorists have furthered this equivocal assumption by attempting to standardize
the social complexity and political organization perceived in the Olmec phenomenon.
Much of social evolution theory strives to achieve a universal and sequential
development of social organization (e.g., Fried 1961, 1967; Morgan 1963; Sahlins and
Service 1960; Service 1962, 1975; Steward 1955; White 1959). Smith (2003:33)
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