Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica offers the most thorough and up-to-date book-length treatment of Olmec society and culture available.

Here is the story of America's oldest - and oddest - civilization, the Olmecs of the southern Mexican jungles. Virtually unknown to archaeologists until the early twentieth century, their true importance is only now being realized and shedding new light on how the Indian peoples of the Americas came to be here.

Provides a complete overview of Olmec culture, its accomplishments and impact on later Mexcian civilizations.

"This catalogue was published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on the occasion of the exhibition Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico"--Colophon.

The Olmecs are renowned for their massive carved stone heads and other sculptures, the first stone monuments produced in Mesoamerica. Seven decades of archaeological research have given us many insights into the lives of the Olmecs, who inhabited parts of the modern Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco from around 1150 to 400 BC. Beginning with the first modern explorations in the 1920s, the story of how generations of archaeologists and local residents have uncovered the Olmec past and pieced together a portrait of an ancient civilization that left no written records unfolds. From stories of fortuitous discoveries and frustrating disappoints, helpful collaborations and deceitful shenanigans emerges the unconventional history of Olmec archeology.

Rosenswig proposes that we understand Early Formative Mesoamerica as an archipelago of complex societies.

The most modern and complete overview of Olmec culture, its accomplishments and impact on later Mexican civilizations, hailed by Michael Coe as the first truly complete and authoritative account of this 3,000-year-old culture, is fast becoming the standard work on the subject.

The Olmec Civilization was the first known civilization in North and Central America. In this book, you will read about where they were located, their daily lives, as well as their cultures and traditions. By knowing facts of the past, you can tell where some modern cultures, traditions and beliefs come from. How can you relate with the Olmecs? Study their civilization today.

"The wondrous forces of the Orisha in kingdoms of the Olmec."Around 4,000 years ago, the Olmec rose and flourished in Mexico. The mysterious ascension of this civilization occurred in the Veracruz region characterized by ridges, hills, and volcanoes in the likeness of Aganjú-the Orisha of Volcanoes. The dynastic kings commissioned artisans to carve their faces into volcanic stone weighing 20 tons or more. Their colossal portraits and altars were carved with the sacred symbols of the jaguar, turtle, and lightning in the fashion of Shango-the Orisha of Lightning. The jaguar-eagle warriors enforced the laws of Olmec provinces carrying out the same duties of Ochosi-the Orisha of Law and Justice. In the Way of the Orisha, the Olmec religion emphasized ancestral veneration, the cosmos, interaction between humans and deities, divination, and a priesthood to preside over the sacred traditions. Behold, the marvels of the Orishas in the powerful civilization of the ancient Olmec.