Who were the Olmecs and why is it difficult to trace their origins?
For nearly a century of archaeological work of Mesoamerica the Olmecs place and influence remained virtually unknown. It was widely accepted that the Classic Maya were the originators of complex civilization in Mesoamerica, due largely to the magnificence of archaeological finds dating back to the nineteenth century and the writings of post-Spanish Conquest monks and colonists. Much controversy arose, therefore, over discoveries made in the late 1930s of this “quiet” beginning of ancient Mesoamerican civilization. It severely upset the touchstone of the intellectual community’s findings of Classic Maya civilization. According to the text Ancient Civilizations: The Near East and Mesoamerica, by C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky and Jeremy Sabloff, “In many ways, the scientific discovery of the Olmec civilization is as engrossing and exciting as Schliemann’s discovery of Troy, although it is not so nearly well known.” Smithsonian scholar Matthew Stirling made these initial findings of the Olmecs af
