Olmec remains

[Minimalist]

Yeah, Zahi claims they have the remnants of the beard in the Cairo Museum.

[rich]

[kbs2244]

Does someone have a catalog of ALL the Olmec heads found?
We keep seeing PICS of the obviously Negroid ones, but it seems to me I have seen PICS of some that had other facial features.
Longer skulls, no helmets, beards, etc.

[Sam Salmon]

Does someone have a catalog of ALL the Olmec heads found?
We keep seeing PICS of the obviously Negroid ones, but it seems to me I have seen PICS of some that had other facial features.
Longer skulls, no helmets, beards, etc.

Check Rugeri's site there's a fair selection.

Interesting to hear that the Olmecs put helmets on the heads of statues of infants, I guess you can never get kids started in sports too young.

As to Rich's theory-how long before someone posts a photo of El Embajador from Monte Alban?

[War Arrow]

No, on second thoughts - please don't trouble yourself to answer that. I am entirely past caring and have no interest in receiving any further mysterious or vaguely insulting one-liners from yourself.

I'm done.

[michaelruggeri]

All 16 of the giant Olmec heads thus far uncovered have ball players helmets. None have beards. All have the same round heroic head and face. The noses, eyes and general frontal facial features differ in each one--leading us to believe that each one represents a separate ruler being immortalized in stone with the same heroic ball player physiognomy.

You have seen beards on some Olmec figurines. There appeared to be two groups that made up the Olmecs. When they show ones with beards, their noses were usually less flat and lips less full. When they show the unbearded ones, they are usually more eskimo like, stockier, rounder.

I do not see the faces as "obviously" negroid. Again, many of the indigenous folks on the Gulf Coast and further south have flat noses and big lips just like their ancestors are shown in the big Olmec heads.
The Lancondan Maya man, Chan Bor, who led archaeologists to the murals at Bonampak had a very, very flat nose and very big lips, again, just like his ancestors. If you died his skin black, you would think he was a Black man but he was not.

Many of my stockier Mexican students who have flatter noses and bigger lips than most Anglos look a lot like the Olmec heads--not as heroically magnified--but still similar. And the indigneous on the Gulf Coast, even more similar as I have said.

Mike Ruggeri's The Olmec World
http://tinyurl.com/2ybvek

[michaelruggeri]

I am posting this here under the Olmec remains topic rather than begin a new topic.

Erik Boot posted a report from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia on the excavation of a ceramic vessel at the Olmec site of El Manati. Residue analysis of the vessel indicates that by perhaps as early as 1750 BCE, Olmec elites were drinking a cacao based beverage that may pre-date the cacao beverage that was consumed by the elites at the site of Puerto Escondido in Honduras that was reported on in 2007. The elite at Puerto Escondido were drinking a cacao based beverage circa 1450 BCE.

Here is Erik's report (in Spanish);

Erik Boot's Ancient Mesoamerican News Updates
http://ancient-mesoamerica-news-updates.blogspot.com/


Mike Ruggeri's The Ancient Americas Breaking News
http://web.mac.com/michaelruggeri

[Ishtar]

Well, it's never too early to get into chocolate.

Glad they were enjoying it back then too!

[Roberto]

No, it's never to early to get into chocolate,
ESPECIALLY when it's an "alcoholic beverage!"

Have to hand it to the Olmec,
they brought in the Ballgame,
and what better to have while watching a Ballgame ...
a nice beer, or one fermentd cacao beverage!
Throw in a few taco's and what more could you
ask for. Perhaps a few heads rolling on the court
after the winners are sacrificed!

[Ishtar]

No, it's never to early to get into chocolate,
ESPECIALLY when it's an "alcoholic beverage!"

Have to hand it to the Olmec,
they brought in the Ballgame,
and what better to have while watching a Ballgame ...
a nice beer, or one fermentd cacao beverage!
Throw in a few taco's and what more could you
ask for. Perhaps a few heads rolling on the court
after the winners are sacrificed!

Yeah.. it's called Death By Chocolate!

[Roberto]

Ancient MesoAmerica News Updates 2008, No. 69: El Manatí, Veracruz - Formative Period Vessel (ca. 1750 BC) Containing Cacao-based Beverage Identified
In 2007 I wrote the following introduction to Maya News Updates 2007, No. 76: "Archaeological research at the site of Puerto Escondido, located in the Ulua Valley in Honduras, shows that the inhabitants of the region cultivated cacao some 3,400 years ago and made it into alcoholic beverages, made from the fermented pulp of cacao pods, as reported today, Tuesday, November 13, 2007, at several Spanish and English news websites. The research findings, based on the residue analysis of scrapings from the inside of ceramic vessels found at Puerto Escondido, were reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a team led by Dr. John Henderson of Cornell University. Although posted here at Maya News Updates, the inhabitants of the Ulua Valley at this time (ca. 15000 BC) can best be identified as Central-Americans." As reported today, Wednesday July 30, 2008, by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, recent residue analysis of the contents of a ceramic vessel found at the site of El Manatí, Veracruz, seems to show that by circa 1,750 BC (but at least between 1900 to 900 BC) a cacao-based beverage was consumed among the elite of the local Olmec inhabitants (edited by AMaNU):

While reading this article on the cacoa beverage, I noticed this...

Although posted here at Maya News Updates, the inhabitants of the Ulua Valley at this time (ca. 15000 BC) can best be identified as Central-Americans."

So this would be around 15000 BC. Very interesting, but of course
expected in this area. This would be right before the time the comet
hit the NE United States, and before the beginning of so-called
Clovis. Do we have Solutrean characteristics here?

With that in mind I can't help but to wonder what lies off the east coast
of Mexico around the Olmec heartland. This is a rich oil field and you
know there has been extensive seismograph work done. It would be
interesting to search through these seismograph records to see what
the stratigraphic record reveals. There's got to be sites along that
coast line where the mouth of major rivers once existed.

It's already been pointed out, that along the west side of the MS. River,
in Southeastern Texas, seismograph research has found several
huge shell deposits, along the river channels and mouth on the
continental shelf that are presume to be archaic or pleistocene
shell middens. Created when the sea level was much lower. I have
not heard of anyone testing these yet, by coring. But this is the
approach that they are using with the recent survey in Florida that
we recently spoke of.

With that said, does anyone know of any type of archaeological
seismograph work along the continental shelf off of the Olmec
heartland area, say around Veracruz? And I'm not speaking about
the so-called stone work off the west tip of Mexico. I'm still very
skeptical of that discovery at this time. What was that called,
the Bimini wall?

[War Arrow]

With that in mind I can't help but to wonder what lies off the east coast
of Mexico around the Olmec heartland. This is a rich oil field and you
know there has been extensive seismograph work done. It would be
interesting to search through these seismograph records to see what
the stratigraphic record reveals. There's got to be sites along that
coast line where the mouth of major rivers once existed.

I might be misreading where you actually mean, and in any case this may have no bearing on your subject, but are we talking about the rough undersea area of the crater supposedly caused by the Chicxulub (spelling?) meteor (or whatever it was) - the one that is often cited as having contributed to the K-T extinction?