Paleolithic and Megalithic traits in the Olmec tradition of Mexico

              Carlo GAY, New York
Illustrations by Frances PRATT, New York
PALEOLITHIC AND MEGALITHIC TRAITS
IN THE OLMEC TRADITION OF MEXICO
Por years there has been a sustained interest in problems of cultural
contact between the Old and the New world. Among diffusionists the
consensus is that the dissemination of ideas, customs, skills, and a few
domesticated plants, between the two areas was a one way phenomenon in
which high cultures of the Old World were the donors and the aborigines of
the Western Hemisphere the beneficiaries.
With a few laudable exceptions, the diffusionists have focused their atten­tion
upon the interval between the fifth century B.C. and the fifteenth
century A.D., th􀁒􅉴t encompassed the birth and growth of civilization in the
Americas. Lately, as cultural parallels are frequently elusive and difficult to
define, their interest seems to have shifted to the question of how ancient
people crossed vast bodies of water, either from Asia or the Mediterranean
side, if indeed they did. This may be a challenging endeavor, particularly
when it involves transoceanic voyages to test the seaworthiness of precarious
craft, but it does not help in the least to prove difusion as long as factual
evidence is not found on land.
While ancient people may have been capable of navigating the oceans, it
does not necessarily follow that diffusion was always accomplished by mari­time
routes. Time enters into consideration, and the farther back the higher
the probability is that diffusion was achieved by way of a land route. In that
event, the question arises as to how far back in time one can reasonably
expect to find evidence of cultural contacts between the Old and the New
World. The answer is that there is no limit in time as long as America was
inhabited, and that no aspect of ancient American history should be neg­lected.
I fail to understand why the Teotihuacán and Maya cultures ( 400 B.C. -
A.D. 1500) have long been subject to scrutiny in the search for evidence of
cultural contacts with the Old World, while the Olmec tradition that pre­ceded
them has been largely overlooked. Y et, the impact of this tradition
upon the Mesoamerican scene between 1500 and 500 B.C. was of such
consequence that its lasting effects far exceeded any hypothetical influence
that later Mexican cultures might have received from across the oceans. If
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these cultures were indebted to the Olmec heritage far most of their accom­plishments
as they undoubtedly were, then it would seem reasonable to
delve directly into the question: from whom did the Olmecs derive their
basic knowledge and creative impetus which was eventually to farge civili­zation
in Mesoamerica? Was the Olmec tradition a recipient of cultural traits
from fareign sources? Or was it a unique phenomenon in the history of
mankind, contrary to the accepted principie that no majar culture ever
evolved in a state of total isolation? Throughout the years I have frequently
pondered these questions, and have concluded the fallowing which may sug­gest
a reorientation of thinking about the Olmec culture in general and its
possible pertinence to diffusion.
l. The vast intellectual disparity that existed between the Olmecs and all the
other peoples that lived at the same time in Mexico, can only be ex­plained
by allowing far a greater antiquity of the Olmec tradition in terms
of cultural evolution, than has previously been thought.
2. The Olmec tradition appears to be a totally independent phenomenon with
no antecedents of any sort. At the same time, there is no way of knowing
how long the tradition thrived in Mexico, nor where the Olmecs origi­nated
befare settling in the country at an undetermined date, but cer­tainly
befare the second millennium B.C.
3. As the autogenesis of a culture of the magnitude of the Olmec is out of
the question, the culture must have been rooted in sorne other tradition
of greater antiquity and endowed with a remarkable cultural potential.
Apparently, neither in Mexico nor in any other part of the Americas did
such a tradition exist. And so Eurasia enters into consideration as the
possible cradle of a "mother tradition" far the Olmec.
4. No matter in what terms the components of the Olmec repertory are
considered, there still is no concrete evidence of any cultural trait having
been carried from the Old World to the Olmec tradition during the second
and first millennium B.C. There are, however, a number of peculiar fea­tures
in the culture that relate to fareign and more ancient ones in the
Paleolithic and Megalithic traditions of western Europe.
These features are tantalizing in their suggestion of a new approach to the
much debated question of the origin of the Olmecs, and deserve to be
analyzed in detall.
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PALEOLITHIC TRAITS
There are three distinct examples in the Olmec tradition, strictly symbolic
in character, that find more or less clase counterparts in the Paleolithic
tradition of western Europe: the organization of the deep-cave sanctuary at
Juxtlahuaca, Guerrero; the pairing of signs; and the use of cup-marks.
The painted decoration of the J uxtlahuaca sanctuary appears to be or­ganized
in accord with a formula that, in the opinion of Leroi-Gourhan
( 196 7), regulated the decoration of cave sanctuaries in the Franco - Canta­brian
region from about 25000 to 8500 B.C. Most significant is the clase
similarity of introductory and closing signs to the sanctuaries, which at
Juxtlahuaca as well as in a number of paleolithic sanctuaries consist of
groups of spot signs. The subject is discussed at length in CHALCACINGO
(1971).
Regarding the pairing of signs (also discussed in CHALCACINGO), the
most striking analogy is between the pairing of spot signs with triangle-and­slit
signs at Chalcacingo, Morelos, and the pairing of cup-marks with vulva
signs on stone slabs and boulders from paleolithic Europe.
The use of cup-marks - the earliest man-made symbols (Giedion, 1962) -
was not only frequent in paleolithic and neolithic Europe, but it was also a
distinctive trait of the Olmec tradition. On the Gulf Coast of Mexico cup­marks
are specifically found on colossal heads from San Lorenzo, Veracruz,
and La Venta, Tabasco. At Chalcacingo they occur on a number of mega­lithic
altars, and in conjunction with at least one rock carving, Relief 3. I
have also recorded cup-marks on a monolith in Guerrero and two more in
Morelos.
In August, 1970, I found 8 cup-marks - 5 of which are interconnected
by shallow channels - carved out of the vertical face of a huge monolith
(Fig. 1) that overlooks a perennial spring near the village of Xochipala,
Guerrero. In my opinion, this pit-and-groove work is the earliest example
that can be attributed to the Olmecs. It can be dated at around the middle of
the second millennium B.C., but it may be earlier.
In J uly, 1971, J ohn Hankins and I were guided by a nearly blind man to a
huge rock with no less than 50 cup-marks and about 70 grooves gouged out
of the rounded top (Figs. 2). This is by far the most impressive example of
pit-and-groove work I have ever seen in Mexico. The 6 by 4 meter ( esti­mated)
rock is located about 400 meters east of the village of Tetela del
Monte near Cuernavaca, Morelos. It is on the bank of a stream that flows
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through a ravine 25 meters below, but at the time the stone was decorated
the stream bed was probably on the same level as the rock. Sorne of the
cup-marks and grooves are heavily weathered. Traces of others are on sec­tions
of the rock that was dynamited by treasure hunters. (Isolated mono­liths
bearing signs are sometimes blasted in the hope of finding gold hidden
inside the stone.)
Because of the particular nature of the signs, which closely relate to the
pit-and-groove work found on sorne of the colossal heads from the Gulf
Coast, there is good reason to believe that the monolith of Tetela del Monte
belongs to the Olmec corpus of archaic monuments. (So far, the Preclassic
site of Gualupita, within the city limits of Cuernavaca, is the nearest location
that bears evidence of Olmec occupation in the same general area.)
In August, 1971, Gillett Grifin and I found another stone with cup­marks
and grooves (Fig. 3), at the headwaters of an afluent of the Yautepec
River in Morelos. The 1.65 by O. 90 meter table- like monolith, locally
known as "Piedra del Sacrificio" (Sacrificial Stone), lies in a meadow bor­dering
the stream, about a half-hour walk from the town of Oaxtepec.
Though the stone is considerably smaller, the pit-and-groove work is similar
to that of the monument of Tetela del Monte and for that reason it probably
belongs to the same Olmec complex of decorated monoliths.
It is of particular interest that both the Morelos monoliths and the one at
Xochipala are close to water. Should other monuments of the same kind be
found in a similar context, then it would be logical to conclude that these
sacred stones were closely related to water concepts.
The repeated association of cup-marks with groove signs is intriguing. If
the grooves are a simplified form of vulva signs, then their association with
cup-marks equates the pairing of cup-marks with triangle-and-slit signs on
stone slabs and boulders from paleolithic Europe.
MEGALITHIC TRAITS
If the signs found on the monoliths described above have close points of
similarity with paleolithic symbols, it is not less true that conceptually the
sacred stones, per se, fall into the category of undressed, decorated and
undecorated monuments that characterize the Megalithic tradition of west­ern
Europe and other areas of the Old World. In western Europe, and more
precisely in Brittany, this tradition has been dated from 3000 to 1300 B.C.
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JAHRB. / GAY S. 5
(Biedermann, 1965 ), but, recently, tree-ring measurements have indicated
that early carbon-14 dates may have to be revised backward by as much as
700 years (Renfrew, 1971).
Besides the Morelos and Guerrero stones with pit-and-groove decoration,
there are other significant Olmec monuments and stone arrangements that
find a counterpart in the Megalithic tradition of western Europe. Following
the date of their discovery, they include: a dolmen-like structure, as well as
stone alignments and enclosures at La Venta; 18 table-altars and 3 bedrock­altars
at Chalcacingo; and two undressed monoliths at Las Mesas near
Xochipala.
The La Venta monuments were described and documented in detall by
Philip Drucker ( 19 5 2) and Philip Drucker et al. ( 19 59). The dolmen-like
tomb (Fig. 4 ), excavated from an earthen mound, has a rectangular chamber
about 5 meters long and 2.20 meters wide. The structure is composed of 29
upright monoliths ( columnar basalt), 1 O monoliths placed horizontally to
forro a roof, and 5 more that lean and clase the entrance of the tomb.
Various stone alignments farming walls and enclosures at La Venta,
now far the most part destroyed, were also composed of the same basalt
columns set upright side by side.
From 1965 through 1969, Frederick Field, Gillett Griffin, Frances Pratt,
and I located 18 table-altars and 3 bedrock-altars at the site of Chalcacingo.
Except far one with a rectangular cavity, the table-altar consist of
undressed monoliths bearing from 1 to 10 large pits (Fig. 5). A number of the
altars have additional features such as cup-marks, drain canals, and in one
instance a group of symbolic motifs. The bedrock-altars, also featuring large
pits and in one instance a rectangular cavity, are at the faot of rock carvings
in low-relief. 1 have described the megalithic altars in CHALCACINGO, and
proposed that they were probably used by the Olmecs far propitiatory rites
in an agricultural context.
In July, 1970, Gillett Griffin and I went to Xochipala, a mountain village
in the Sierra Madre del Sur. The trip was primarily motivated by my hope of
6.nding archaic monuments in the region. One afternoon, while we were
resting in the shade of a tree with two farmers, 1 showed them sketches of
stone arrangements in the Megalithic tradition of western Europe. Both
confirmed having seen two monuments like those I had drawn in New York
months befare. One, they said, consisted of an alignment of six upright
monoliths, located on the western side of the Xochipala basin, on a sort of
plateau locally known as "Las Mesas." The other was described as two
upright monoliths supporting a large slab.
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On a subsequent trip to Las Mesas it turned out that only two of the
monoliths (Fig.6) were still in place, one on either side of a man-made
earthen mound. Our guide suggested that the other faur had probably been
removed or buried in an adjoining cornfield. Rather than being an alignment
of stones, I suspect that if there were faur other monoliths, as claimed by
our guide, they probably flanked burial mounds as markers or memorial
monuments. In any event, the two that are still in situ at Las Mesas - now
recognized as an Olmec site - are technically and conceptually similar to the
menhirs of the Megalithic tradition of western Europe. Even though they are
about a meter of the ground, they are probably sunk deeper than they
appear because of soil accumulation.
In August, 1971, Frances Pratt and I made an arduous trip in the Sierra
Madre, west of Xochipala, in the hope of locating the monument that had
been described as "two monoliths supporting a slab." We did not find the
monument, but on a seventy-meter elevation above the floor of a precipitous
canyon through which a river flows, we carne across a system of dry walls
built of huge blocks of stone (Fig.7), apparently quarried from the nearby
tabular limestone farmations.
As it is only possible to gain the site by wading down the swift river far
about an hour, the trip is only safe during the dry season. A two-week dry
spell last summer accounted far the success of our trip, but fear of the
possibility of a flash flood that might have locked us into the canyon far
days, prevented us from staying at the site more than half an hour. While the
chance find appears to be very important in that it denotes an occupancy of
the place by early people, I cannot draw any conclusion as to its architec­tural
nature and cultural affiliation until it is possible to return to the site.
CONCLUSIONS
In discussing Olmec features that have counterparts in the Paleolithic and
the Megalithic traditions of western Europe, I have purposely omitted less
significant examples such as the extensive use of red paint in burials, and
similarities of symbols in general, including hand sings. The use of red paint
and hand signs had such a wide range of temporal and spatial distribution,
that if they are of consequence in an Olmec context it is only because they
mesh with more pertinent and more unique cultural parallels.
What is most surprising in considering these parallels is that there are at
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least seven significant features in the Olmec tradition that were first de­veloped
in the Old World. The very nature of these features, and principally of
the scheme that regulates the organization of the Juxtlahuaca sanctuary,
makes it dificult to explain them as incidents of independent evolution. In
such an event, there are only two alternatives: either these features can be
accounted for by cultural diffusion, probably accomplished befare 1500
B.C.; or they were an integral part of the ancestral Olmec cultural heritage,
either in a positive or a latent form.
The first alternative seems unlikely because the number and diversity of
the features, as well as the complexity of sorne of them, tend to indicate the
existence of a closer relationship between the Olmec and more ancient tradi­tions
of western Europe, than would have resulted from an occasional
chance contact. The second alternative is more plausible, because it is only
through an unbroken line of descent that such a wealth of cultural traits
could conceivably have been transmitted and preserved to such a high degree
of integrity for so long. And this is not to reiterate the unique and otherwise
unexplainable intellectual preeminence of the Olmecs in Mexico.
While either proposition is wholly speculative, 1 believe it is a grave error
to assume that all ancient Amerinds had such a limited cultural background
that they were unable to progress appreciably without outside stimuli.
Probably, the unprecedented,. independent and dramatic evolution of the
Olmecs can, to a large extent, be ascribed to the unique cultural potential
they already possessed at the beginning of their new life on this continent.
This brief article merely intends to demonstrate that there are cultural
parallels between the Olmec and more ancient traditions of western Europe,
and to stimulate an interest in the provocative question of Olmec ancestry.
Only further research will tell if the Olmecs did inherit cultural traits from
foreign sources, or if their forefathers carried with them a superior cultural
legacy from the Old to the New World.
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REFERENCES
BIEDERMANN, Hans
1965 "L'Art Mégalithique en Europe." In L'Histoire Universelle de L'Art,
Vol. l. Zurich.
DRUCKER, Philip
1952 La Venta, Tabasco: A Study of Olmec Ceramics and Art. Bureau of
American Ethnology, Bulletin 153. Washington, D.C., USA.
DRUCKER, Philip, R.F. HEIZER, and R. SQUIER
1959 Excavations at La Venta, Tabasco, 1955. Bureau of American
Ethnology, Bulletin 170. Washington, D.C., USA.
GAY, Carla T.E.
196 7 "Oldest Paintings in the New World." Natural History, Vol. LXXVI,
No. 4. New York, N.Y., USA.
1971 Chalcacingo. Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt. Graz, Austria.
GIEDION, S.
1962 The Eternal Present: The Beginnings of Art. Bollingen Series
XXXV. 6. l. New York, N.Y., USA.
LEROI-GOURHAN, André
1967 Treasures of Prehistoric Art. Harry N. Abrams. New York, N.Y.,
USA.
RENFREW, Colín
1971 "Carbon 14 and the Prehistory of Europe." Scientific American,
Vol. 225, No. 4. New York, N.Y., USA.
Bine Kurzfassung des Aufsatzes in deutscher übersetzung erscheint in einer
der kommenden Nummern der l. C. -Nachrichten!
Una versión abreviada en alemán sera publicada en uno de los números
siguientes de nuestro periódico "l. C. -Nachrichten".
Un extrait du traité traduit a l'allemand va etre publié dans un des numéros
suivants de notre journal "l. C. -Nachrichten".
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Figure l. Pit-and-groove work on the monolith of Ojo de Agua,
Xochipala, Guerrero, Mexico.
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Morelos, Mexico.
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Figure 4. Dolmen-like tomb from La Venta, as reconstructed in the Parque La Venta in
Vilahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico.
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Figure 6. Two monoliths flanking a burial mound at Las Mesas, Xochipala, Guerrero, Mexico.
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Figure 7. Section of a dry wall at a site in the Sierra Madre del Sur, west of Xochipala,
Guerrero, Mexico.
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