2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I07 



chrome horizon which showed sufficient specific typological resem- 

 blances — not just vague similarities — to wares from archaic Mayan 

 levels at far-away Uaxactun to warrant assigning it an approximately 

 contemporary dating. Following conformably on this early horizon 

 were two succeeding ones, Middle, and Upper Tres Zapotes. In the 

 course of reconnaissance in the region, Stirling visited La Venta, 

 where he found numerous monuments stylistically akin to those of 

 Tres Zapotes,^ and he judged the site to be an important one. 



The work at Cerro de las Mesas in 1941 proved to bear only indi- 

 rectly on the Olmec question, for we soon realized that neither in 

 ceramics nor in any other important respect was that site like Tres 

 Zapotes. It proved to represent an intrusive Highland culture, geneti- 

 cally related throughout its history to that of the Mixteca-Puebla 

 area. This meant that the western or northwestern boundary of Olmec 

 territory must have been between Cerro de las Mesas and Tres 

 Zapotes, though the two sites are less than 50 miles apart, airline. 

 The following year Stirling sent me to La Venta to obtain strati- 

 graphic samples of the ceramics and to test the ceremonial structures. 

 In 1943 Stirling and Wedel carried out extensive excavations of the 

 ceremonial complexes, and subsequently, the former extended his 

 reconnaissances of the region to the point of being able to define 

 with considerable exactness the geographical extent of Olmecan cul- 

 ture. Since I was otherwise occupied, the La Venta pottery com- 

 plexes gathered dust in Washington, and only recently has it been 

 possible to study them. The complete report on the work at La Venta 

 may be delayed for a time, so it seems well to summarize the results 

 of the ceramic study. 



La Venta is situated on a small islandlike structure of solid ground 

 surrounded by swamps, a short distance northeast of the junction of 

 the Tonala and Blasillo Rivers. It lies some little distance inland, 

 but so low is the general terrain that the low Gulf tides flood and 

 ebb in the rivers and sloughs around the island. The habitable area 

 is relatively small, and certainly would not have supported the man- 

 power that must have been utilized to handle the stone monuments 

 and build the massive structures — it seems more probable that the 

 site was a ceremonial center with a small permanent population of 

 priests, or priest-rulers, and their personal servants and perhaps 

 artisans, supported by tribute from neighboring villages located on 

 similar elevated areas among the swamps, from which, as well, the 

 laborers were recruited for major constructional endeavors. If this 



1 Stirling, M. W., Stone monuments of southern Mexico. Bur. Anier. Ethnol. 

 Bull. 138, 1943. 



