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

Lorenzo is considered the earliest and largest Formative period regional center in the
Gulf Coast lowlands and demonstrates evidence for a significant level of social
complexity (Coe and Diehl 1980a; Cyphers 1996b, 1997b). From around 1300 to 900
BC, the site appears to have been pre-eminent in the Southern Gulf Lowlands’
sociopolitical, economic, and artistic realms. Because of its apparent leadership position
in these spheres, this temporal period is referred to as the San Lorenzo Olmec Horizon.
This primacy does not necessarily imply military dominance, political authority, or
economic control outside of the middle Coatzacoalcos River Basin, however.
San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán is actually a complex of three sites. San Lorenzo
contains the primary Olmec occupational zone located atop a 45 m high natural plateau
that was significantly modified by human effort. The artificially leveled, elevated ridge
extends approximately 1.2 km in a north-south direction and contains elite-related
activity areas and compounds (Coe and Diehl 1980a; Cyphers 1996b). The second
component of the site is Tenochtitlán, another large Olmec occupational zone situated on
the Río Chiquito, and the third section is Potrero Nuevo on the ancient of course of the
Coatzacoalcos River.
Coe initiated the Río Chiquito Project to expand Stirling’s earlier investigations.
The excavations conducted by Coe and Diehl (1980) between 1966 and 1968 produced a
well-developed chronology of occupation and the first detailed topographic map of a
major Olmec center. Their conclusions, based on multiple lines of evidence recovered by
the project, suggested to them that the San Lorenzo Olmec had developed a complex
society that achieved, minimally, a chiefdom-level organization, and conceivably reached
statehood. In 1968, Coe began a series of subsurface investigations that utilized a cesium
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