SOME IMPLICATIONS OF THE CERAMIC COMPLEX 

 OF LA VENTA 



By PHILIP DRUCKER 



Bureau of American Ethnology, 



Smithsonian Institution 



(With Six Plates) 



The investigations of the National Geographic Society-Smithsonian 

 Institution expeditions at La Venta, Tabasco, yielded a quantity of 

 valuable data on an important Meso-American culture which has 

 come to be called "Olmec." This designation, with its shadowy ethnic 

 connotations, is perhaps not the happiest one that could have been 

 selected, but still it is better than the term "La Venta" suggested for 

 the culture at the conference on the Olmec problem at Tuxtla 

 Gutierrez in 1942, for the site name should more properly be re- 

 stricted to the particular component or horizon of Olmec culture 

 represented there. 



By way of background, the excavations at La Venta were not 

 random explorations, but rather were part of a definite program 

 mapped out by Dr. M. W. Stirling for an attack on the problem of 

 Meso-American culture growth from the peripheries of Maya ter- 

 ritory. After the first season's work at Tres Zapotes, Stirling recog- 

 nized that he was dealing with a culture, which, though it had Mayan 

 linkages, was not simply a pallid marginal derivative, but had some 

 distinctiveness of its own. Among the more impressive discoveries 

 he made was that of a carved date that appeared to refer to Baktun 7. 

 Stirling also was struck by the stylistic similarities between the monu- 

 mental stone art — particularly the colossal heads — and the mysteri- 

 ous "baby-face" or "Olmec" figurines of jade and of clay which had 

 not at that time been associated with an archeologically known hori- 

 zon. He reoriented his plan of research to allow for a more inten- 

 sive study of this new culture of southern Veracruz state. Excava- 

 tions at Tres Zapotes were continued into a second season, and on 

 the basis of stratigraphic materials I was subsequently able to outline 

 a local ceramic column which substantiated Stirling's conclusions as 

 to the probable contemporaneity of the early date which he had based 

 on a study of the stone monuments in that it revealed an early mono- 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 107, NO. 8 



