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The Olmec Mother Culture

The best-known Native American civilizations are probably those of the Aztecs and the
Mayans, who lived in Mexico and Central America about 1,500 to 1,000 years ago. But the mother
culture for both of these kingdoms was the Olmec society, which occupied the same land nearly

1,000 years before either kingdom. The Olmecs were similar to the Aztecs and the Mayans in
5 • many ways. Like these later cultures, the Olmecs were excellent builders and artisans. They
created the first pyramids in the Americas and probably the first large cities as well.

Olmec society was tightly structured. It was ruled by a small class of priests and nobles,
while the other members of society were little more than slaves for this upper class, and were
cruelly oppressed. The Olmecs had three large cities, each of which was placed in a location

10 • designed to take advantage of a different group of natural resources. Each one was centered
around a pyramid, which was the focus of religious and social life in the city. We know that

the Olmecs practiced human sacrifice at these pyramids because researchers have discovered
the skeletons of the sacrificial victims. Unlike the Aztecs, however, who generally sacrificed
warriors to their gods, most of the sacrificial victims of the Olmecs seem to have been the elderly

15 • or young children. It is unknown why the Olmecs chose these people as their sacrificial victims,
but it is known that most of them were sacrificed as an offering to their main god, a half-human,

half-jaguar spirit.
Although their society was cruel and oppressive, the Olmecs brought many inventions
to the Americas. Not only did they build the first pyramids in the Western Hemisphere, but

20 • they also introduced the first writing systems and the first calendars. All of these inventions
were later copied by the Mayans and the Aztecs. While the Olmecs are not as well-known as the
Aztecs or the Mayans, theirs was truly one of the great civilizations of the ancient Americas.

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