Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T15:12:39.571Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

OLMEC GREENSTONE IN EARLY FORMATIVE MESOAMERICA: EXCHANGE AND PROCESS OF PRODUCTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2010

Olaf Jaime-Riverón
Olaf Jaime-Riverón*
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky, Department of Anthropology, 211 Lafferty Hall Lexington, KY 40506, Phone: (859)257-2710, Fax: 859-323-1959
*
E-mail correspondence to: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The earliest uses of Olmec greenstone (jadeite, greenstone, schist, green quartz, and others) accelerated the interregional exchange of technology and raw materials. These relationships provoked asymmetry between polities of different parts of Mesoamerica and within Olmec sites. There were stronger relationships between the Gulf Coast and Chiapas. In general terms, greenstone artifacts display an evolutionary process similar to ceramics and basalt sculpture in the emergence of complex society during terminal Early Formative times. This paper focuses on the exchange of technological choices and asymmetry between Gulf Coast of Mexico and the rest of Mesoamerica.

Type
Special Section: Rethinking the Olmecs and Early Formative Mesoamerica
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , Spring 2010 , pp. 123 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Brookfield, Harold C. 1984 Intensification revisited. Pacific Viewpoint 25:15–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Celoria, F. S. C., and Wilcock, J. D. 1975 A Computer-Assisted Classification of British Neolithic Axes and a Comparison with Some Mexican and Guatemalan Axes. Science and Archaeology 16:11–29.Google Scholar
Clark, John E. 1997 The Arts of Government in Early Mesoamerica. Annual Review of Anthropology 26:211–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connerton, Paul 1989 How Societies Remember. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drucker, Philip, Heizer, Robert F., and Squier, Robert J. 1959 Excavations at La Venta, Tabasco, 1955. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 170. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Foshag, William F. 1957 Mineralogical Studies on Guatemalan Jade. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 135, No. 5. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Garber, James F., Grove, David C., Hirth, Kenneth G., and Hoopes, John W. 1993 Jade Use in Portions of Mexico and Central America. In Precolumbian Jade: New Geological and Cultural Interpretations, edited by Lange, Frederick W., pp. 211–231. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Hampton, O. W. 1999 Culture of Stone. Sacred and Profane Uses of Stone among the Dani. Texas A & M University Press, College Station, TX.Google Scholar
Gell, Alfred 1998 Art and Agency: Towards a New Anthropological Theory. Clarendon Press, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaime-Riverón, Olaf 2000 Análisis de las investigaciones arqueológicas en torno a los olmecas: sus posiciones teóricas, metodologías y técnicas desde una perspectiva externalista de la historia de la ciencia. Unpublished Licenciatura thesis, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Jaime-Riverón, Olaf 2003 El hacha olmeca: Biografia y paisaje. Unpublished Master's thesis, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas- Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Jaime-Riverón, Olaf, Castilleros, Dolores Tenorio, Calligaro, Thomas, and Cruz Ocampo, Juan Carlos 2009 A Study of Olmec Serpentinite: Exchange, Production, Distribution, and Consumption during the Early and Middle Formative Period in Mesoamerica In: Internet Archaeology, 26. http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue26/Google Scholar
Lange, Frederick W. (editor) 1993 Precolumbian Jade: New Geological and Cultural Interpretations. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Lesure, Richard 1999 On the Genesis of Value in Early Hierarchical Societies. In Material Symbols: Culture and Economy in Prehistory, edited by Robb, John E.. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 26, pp. 23–55.Google Scholar
Levi-Strauss, Claude 1988 The Way of the Masks. University of Washington Press, Seattle.Google Scholar
Lowe, Gareth 1969 The Olmec Horizon Occupations of Mound 20 at San Isidro in the Middle Grijalva Region of Chiapas. Unpublished Master's thesis, Universidad de las Américas, Mexico, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Lowe, Gareth 1981 Olmec Horizons Defined in Mound 20, San Isidro, Chiapas. In The Olmec and the Neighbors: Essays in Memory of Matthew W. Stirling, edited by Benson, Elizbeth P., pp. 231–255. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Lowe, Gareth 1998 Los olmecas de San Isidro en Malpaso, Chiapas. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia-Centro de Investigaciones Humanísticas de Mesoamérica y el Estado de Chiapas/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLaury, Robert E. 1997 Color and Cognition in Mesoamerica: Constructing Categories as Vantages. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Ortiz Ceballos, Ponciano, and Rodíguez, María del Carmen 1989 Proyecto Manatí. Arqueología 1:23–52.Google Scholar
Ortiz Ceballos, Ponciano, Rodríguez, María del Carmen, and Delgado, Alfredo 1997 Las investigaciones arqueológicas en el Cerro Sagrado Manatí. INAH-Universidad Veracruzana, México.Google Scholar
Ortiz Ceballos, Ponciano, Rodíguez, María del Carmen, and Schmidt, Paul 1988 El Proyecto Manatí: Informe preliminar. Arqueología 3:141–154.Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1931–1958 Collected Papers. 8 Vol. Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Pètrequin, Pierre, and Pètrequin, Anne-Marie 2000 Ecologie d'un outil: la hache de pierre en Irian Jaya (Indonesie). Monographie de Centre de Recherches Archéologiques (12). Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Editions, Paris.Google Scholar
Pitts, Michael 1996 The Stone Axe in Neolithic Britain. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 61:311–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preucel, Robert W., and Bauer, Alexander A. 2001 Archaeological Pragmatics. Norwegian Archaeological Review 34(2):85–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez Martínez, María del Carmen, and Ortiz, Ponciano 2000 A Massive Offering of Axes at La Merced, Hidalgotitlán, Veracruz, Mexico. In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, edited by Clark, John E. and Pye, Mary E., pp. 155–167. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Rodríguez Martínez, María del Carmen, Ceballos, Ponciano Ortiz, Coe, Michael D., Diehl, Richard A., Houston, Stephen D., Taube, Karl A., and Calderón, Alfredo Delgado 2006 Oldest Writing in the New World. Science 313:1610–1614.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roe, Derek A. 1964 The British Lower and Middle Palaeolithic: Some Problems, Methods of Study and Preliminary Results. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 30:245–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roe, Derek A. 1968 British Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Handaxe Groups. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 34:1–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seitz, Russell, Harlow, George, Sisson, Virginia B., and Taube, Karl 2001 “Olmec Blue Jade” and Formative Jade Sources: New Discoveries in Guatemala. Antiquity 75:687–688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stark, Barbara L. 2000 Framing the Gulf Olmecs. In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, edited by Clark, John E. and Pye, Mary E., pp. 31–53. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Stein, Gil (editor) 2005 Archaeology of Colonial Encounters: Comparative Perspectives. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Stein, Gil 1999 Rethinking World-Systems: Diasporas, Colonies, and Interaction in Uruk Mesopotamia. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Stout, Dietrich 2002 Skill and Cognition in Stone Tool Production. An Ethnographic Case Study from Irian Jaya. Current Anthropology 43:693–722.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stout, Dietrich 2003 Stone Tools and the Evolution of Human Thinking: Cultural, Biological, and Archaeological Elements in an Anthropology of Human Origins. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology Indiana University. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl 2004 Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks, No.2. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Testart, Alain 2001 Aux origines de la monnaie. Editions Errance, Paris.Google Scholar
Thouvenot, Marc 1982 Chalchihuitl: le jade chez les Aztèques. Institut d'ethnologie, Paris.Google Scholar
Weiner, Annette B. 1992 Inalienable Possessions. The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Widgren, Mats 2006 Reading Property in the Landscape. Norwegian Journal of Geography 60:57–64.Google Scholar
Widgren, Mats 2007 Pre-Colonial Landesque Capital: A Global Perspective. In Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global Environmental Change, edited by Alf Hornborg, Joan Martinez-Alier, and Mcneill, John Robert. Altamira Press, Walnut Creek, CA.Google Scholar
Yoffee, Norman 2005 Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilization. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar