The Evolution of Mesoamerica: The History of Mesoamerican Culture from the Olmec to the Maya

The Olmec people are widely recognized as the first major civilization of Mexico and are thus generally regarded as the mother civilization of Mesoamerica, making them the people from which all subsequent Mesoamerican cultures derived. In fact, the term Olmec is thought to have originated with the Aztec people, as Olmec in their Nahuatl language means “the rubber people”, a reference to the inhabitants of the land from which they accessed rubber. By and large, the Olmec culture is perhaps ...