Читать книгу Mesoamerican Archaeology - Группа авторов - Страница 32

Christopher A. Pool

Between 1400 and 1000 BCE,¹ Olmecs living in the tropical lowlands of southern Veracruz created an urban center and a stratified polity unprecedented in scale and elaboration in Mesoamerica. As the town of San Lorenzo grew, its inhabitants and those of smaller surrounding settlements surrendered much of their autonomy to a line of rulers who displayed their authority in the first truly monumental stone sculpture on the North American continent. These and later Olmec rulers deployed their symbols in key places, creating landscapes in which polity and ideology were intertwined, yet their control was tenuous and disputed beyond the river valleys where their capitals lay. In this essay I examine the changing physical, economic, political, and symbolic landscapes of the Olmecs and their Epi-Olmec successors.