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Were the Olmec a Mother Culture or a Shared Visual Language? - Moving Basalt and Burying Jade in Ancient Gulf Coast Lowlands | Sleepy Facts About History
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The tropical lowlands of the Gulf Coast in what is now Mexico hold some of the earliest monumental centers in the Americas. Communities there moved multi-ton basalt sculptures across rivers and swamps without wheels or draft animals, and they buried exquisite jade offerings in complex ritual deposits. Yet for decades, the standard interpretation of these people—known to us today as the Olmec—imagined them as a conquering mother culture that seeded all later Mesoamerican civilizations…
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