The oldest pre-Columbian civilized society in Mesoamerica. They occupied the regions in the modern Mexican states of Veracruz and Tobasco.
A highly elaborate Mesoamerican culture on the Mexican gulf coast which was at its height from 1200 to 600 B.C. The Olmec influenced the rise and development of the other great civilizations of Mesoamerica, such as the Maya, and were probably the first to develop large religious and ceremonial centres with temple mounds, monumental sculptures, massive altars, and sophisticated systems of drains and lagoons. The Olmec were probably also the first Mesoamericans to devise glyph writing and the 260-day calendar.
of or designating a Mesoamerican civilization, c. 1000-400 B.C. Early African visitors are believed to have interacted with the Olmecs, c. 800 BC
a member of an early Mesoamerican civilization contered around Veracruz that flourished between 1300 and 400 BC
of or relating to the Olmec of Mexico
(Nahuatl) An ancient pre-Columbian culture, which thrived in Central America, primarily in the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, ca. 1200 BCE-400 BCE. Olmec artifacts were collected and valued by later pre-Columbian peoples such as the Maya and Aztec.
The Olmec civilization of Middle America has been called the "mother culture of the Caribbean Basin" by many historians. As ancestors to the Maya, the Olmec invented a remarkable mathematical language and an extraordinary calendar system based on the true Tropical-Solar Year.
The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian people living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, roughly in what are the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Their immediate cultural influence, however, extends beyond this region (Olmec artwork has been documented as far as El Salvador). The Olmec flourished during the Formative (or Preclassic), dating from 1200 BC to about 400 BC, and are believed to have been the progenitor civilization of later Mesoamerican civilizations.