Implications of new petrographic analysis for the Olmec “mother culture” model
Top Cited Papers
- 9 August 2005
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Vol. 102 (32) , 11219-11223
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0505116102
Abstract
Petrographic analysis of Formative Mexican ceramics by J. B. Stoltmanet al.(see the companion piece in this issue of PNAS) refutes a recent model of Olmec “one-way” trade. In this paper, we address the model's more fundamental problems of sampling bias, anthropological implausibility, and logical non sequiturs. No bridging argument exists to link motifs on pottery to the social, political, and religious institutions of the Olmec. In addition, the model of unreciprocated exchange is implausible, given everything that the anthropological and ethnohistoric records tell us about non-Western societies of that general sociopolitical level.Keywords
This publication has 12 references indexed in Scilit:
- Petrographic evidence shows that pottery exchange between the Olmec and their neighbors was two-wayProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2005
- Patterns of Cultural PrimacyScience, 2005
- Olmec Pottery Production and Export in Ancient Mexico Determined Through Elemental AnalysisScience, 2005
- Primary State Formation in MesoamericaAnnual Review of Anthropology, 2004
- Olmec Origins of Mesoamerican WritingScience, 2002
- Formative Mexican Chiefdoms and the Myth of the “Mother Culture”Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2000
- Archaeological Survey in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, MexicoJournal of Field Archaeology, 2000
- Olmec archaeology: A half century of research and its accomplishmentsJournal of World Prehistory, 1997
- Monte Albán's Hinterland, Part IIPublished by University of Michigan Library ,1989
- THE SIMULATION OF A LINEAR EXCHANGE SYSTEM UNDER EQUILIBRIUM CONDITIONSPublished by Elsevier ,1977