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The Olmec heads have been shrouded in mystery since the first one was found in 1858. Before the
discovery the Olmec civilization was completely unknown to historians and archeologists. Since then
they have continued to find evidence of how the earliest Mesoamerican people lived.
The Olmec Civilization
Dating from 1400 to 300 BC, the Olmecs were the first Mesoamerican culture. They inhabited the
lowland coast of the Gulf of Mexico (in what is now the states of Veracruz and Tabasco), however,
they developed a trading network that spread from the Valley of Mexico in the north to Central
America in the south. This trading system allowed them to share innovations like writing, human
sacrifice, the calendar, the Mesoamerican ball game and the use of a bar and dot system of counting
to the civilizations that they encountered such as the Mayans and the Aztec.
Discovery of the Olmec Heads
Matthew Stirling, the head of the Smithsonians Bureau of American Ethnology in 1938, was studying
sites in Mexico where prehistoric factions had met. He thought that Tres Zapota on the Gulf coast
could possibly be such a site, and he shared his theory with William Duncan Strong, the head of the
Anthropology department at Columbia University. Stirling intended on exploring it and asked Strong
if he knew anyone with knowledge of the area. Seeing as the area was undeveloped, no one had
specialized knowledge but Strong recommended Clarence Wolsey Weiant, a grad student who was
hoping to make Tres Zapota his doctoral field work. Weiant joined Stirlings expedition at the age of
forty-one having stumbled upon archeology after years as a chiropractor.
For the next four months they battled swamps, continual rain, tarantulas, snakes and insects as they
thoroughly searched a two-mile stretch of land. Here they discovered several of the oldest stone
tablets found in Central America, as well as a religious figurine and fifteen U-shaped sculptures. But
the greatest discovery came after Weiant had heard a story from a local of a discovery in the area
several years before. He took a group of men into the jungle and when they reached the area they
had been told about they dug a trench, thus discovering one of the most famous artifacts ever found
in Central America. It was named La Cabeza Colosal (the Giant Head) and stood more than six feet
high. Since then another sixteen Giant Heads have been found in four locations, Tres Zapota (two
heads) Rancho la Cobata (one head), La Venta (four heads) and San Lorenzo (ten heads).
Building Colossal Heads
The heads are carved out of single blocks of volcanic basalt from the Tuxtlas Mountains and range
from 1.47m to 3.4m high. Before they were carved, the large boulders were floated or dragged
nearly a hundred miles, a feat that would take around 1,500 people three or four months. They
weighed eight to twelve tons making the original basalt boulders as much as 18 tons. No iron or
copper has been found in the area so they were most likely carved with stone tools which would