The Beginnings of Mesoamerican Civilization, Inter-Regional Interaction & the Olmec- Robert M.Rosenswig.pdf

The Beginnings of

Mesoamerican

Civilization

INTER-REGIONAL INTERACTION

AND THE OLMEC

Robert M. Rosenswig

University at Albany – SUNY

This page intentionally left blank

THE BEGINNINGS OF MESOAMERICAN CIVILIZATION

Mesoamerica is one of several cradles of civilization in the world. In this

book, Robert M. Rosenswig proposes that we understand Early Formative

Mesoamerica as an archipelago of complex societies that interacted with

one another over long distances and that were separated by less seden-

tary peoples. These early “islands” of culture shared an Olmec artistic aes-

thetic, beginning approximately 1250 bce (uncalibrated), that ﬁrst deﬁned

Mesoamerica as an area of culture. Rosenswig frames the Olmec world from

the perspective of the Soconusco area of Paciﬁc Chiapas and Guatemala.

The disagreements about Early Formative society that have raged over the

past thirty years focus on the nature of inter-regional interaction between San

Lorenzo and other Early Formative regions. He evaluates these debates from

a fresh theoretical perspective and integrates new data into an assessment

of Soconusco society before, during and after the apogee of the San Lorenzo

polity.

Robert M. Rosenswig is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Uni-

versity at Albany – SUNY. He has directed archaeological ﬁeld work in

Mexico, Belize and Costa Rica and has published numerous articles on the

origins of agriculture and the development of sociopolitical complexity in

Mesoamerica.