All about the ancient tribes
Olmec Trading Partners The Mokaya adopted Olmec artistic styles in sculpture and pottery. Olmec ornaments were popular in Mokaya towns. By trading with their Mokaya partners, the Olmec had access to cacao, salt, feathers, crocodile skins, jaguar pelts and desirable stones from Guatemala such as jadeite and serpentine.
What are list of things the Olmec traded?
With their heartlands in the Gulf of Mexico (now the states of Veracruz and Tabasco), Olmec influence and trade activity spread from 1200 BCE, even reaching as far south as present-day Nicaragua.
While the Olmecs were the likely the first civilization to consumer cacao, the use of cocoa beans as commodity money began with the Maya (“The True History of Chocolate”). Cacao, originating from the Maya word “Ka’kau”, held great religious, commercial, and even medicinal value for the Maya.
Because they were the first civilization, many later Mesoamerican civilizations used and repeated Olmec features and characteristics. The Olmec people discovered and made use of many natural resources in the area, including rubber and corn.
In addition to their influence with contemporaneous Mesoamerican cultures, as the first civilization in Mesoamerica, the Olmecs are credited, or speculatively credited, with many “firsts”, including the bloodletting and perhaps human sacrifice, writing and epigraphy, and the invention of popcorn, zero and the
Olmec Tools In spite of only having Stone Age technology, the Olmecs were able to make several sorts of tools which made their life easier. They used whatever was at hand, such as clay, stone, bone, wood or deer antlers. They were skilled at making pottery: vessels and plates used for storing and cooking food.
Contributions. The Olmecs were apparently the first Mesoamerican people to fathom the concept of zero, develop a calendar, and create a hieroglyphic writing system. Also, they are credited for the discovery of the first conduit drainage system known in the Americas.
The Olmec were American Indians, not Negroes (as Melgar had thought) or Nordic supermen.”
What was the role of trade in the Olmec civilization? Trading helped the Olmec civilization prosper and spread influence. What were some important Zapotec contributions to later cultures?
The Olmec created massive monuments, including colossal stone heads, thrones, stela (upright slabs), and statues. They may have been the originators of the Mesoamerican ball game, a ceremonial team sport played throughout the region for centuries.
How did Olmec people provide for their needs? They were farmers. They grew corns, beans, squash. They also hunted and fished.
Early Olmec Eventually, the Olmec realized the land around the rivers was good for growing crops. Rivers made it possible for the Olmec to create irrigation systems, and they began to grow a variety of food, such as squash, beans, and maize (a hearty, multi-colored grain similar to corn).
The Olmec diet mainly consisted of squash, beans, manioc, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and maize.
How do we know the Olmecs were technologically advanced? They used latex from trees to create rubber.
No, though oddly the reason why is not that popcorn is a modern invention, but that popping corn in fact goes back to at least 4700 BCE.
Olmec art lived on in ancient Mesoamerican aesthetic traditions as well. The sculptors and painters in Olmec-period Mexico were the first to portray many of the iconic features of self-proclaimed divine rulers in Mesoamerica.