San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán
Encyclopedia
Archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place in which evidence of past activity is preserved , and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological record.Beyond this, the definition and geographical extent of a 'site' can vary widely,...
s -- San Lorenzo, Tenochtitlán, and Potrero Nuevo -- located in the southeast portion of the Mexican state of Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
. From 1200 BCE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
to 900 BCE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
, it was the major center of Olmec
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....
culture. San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán is best known today for the colossal stone heads unearthed there, the greatest of which weigh 20 tons or more and are 3 meters high.
The site should not be confused with Tenochtitlan, the Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
site in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
.
Description
The earliest evidence for Olmec culture is found at nearby El ManatíEl Manatí
El Manatí is an archaeological site located approximately 60 km south of Coatzacoalcos, in the municipality of Hidalgotitlán 27 kilometers southeast of Minatitlan in the Mexican state of Veracruz...
, a sacrificial bog with artifacts dating to 1600 BCE or earlier. Sedentary agriculturalists had lived in the area for centuries before San Lorenzo developed into a regional center.
San Lorenzo was the largest city in Mesoamerica from roughly 1200 BCE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
to 900 BCE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
, at which time it had begun to be overtaken by the Olmec center of La Venta
La Venta
La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta", which is in Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco....
. By 800 BCE, there was little or no population, although there was an important recolonization of the San Lorenzo plateau from 600 to 400 BCE and again from circa
Circa
Circa , usually abbreviated c. or ca. , means "approximately" in the English language, usually referring to a date...
800 to 1000 CE.
In contrast to La Venta's swamp-like environs, San Lorenzo was situated in the midst of a large agricultural area. San Lorenzo seems to have been largely a ceremonial site, a town without city walls, centered in the midst of a widespread medium-to-large agricultural population. The ceremonial center and attendant buildings could have housed 5,500 while the entire area, including hinterlands, could have reached 13,000.
It is thought that while San Lorenzo controlled much or all of the Coatzacoalcos basin, areas to the east (such as the area where La Venta would rise to prominence) and north-northwest (such as the Tuxtla Mountains) were home to independent polities.
Built on some 700 hectares of high ground between then-active tributaries, the core of San Lorenzo covers 55 hectares that were further modified through extensive filling and leveling; by one estimate half-a-million to 2 million cubic meters of earthen fill were needed, moved by the basketload.
San Lorenzo also boasted an elaborate drainage system which used buried, covered, channeled stones as a type of "pipe". Some researchers have inferred that the purpose of this system was not only to provide drinking water for the population but for ritual purposes as well, and that the rulership was "intimately linked to the figure of a patron water supernatural".
Archaeological history
Matthew StirlingMatthew Stirling
Matthew Williams Stirling was an American ethnologist, archaeologist and later an administrator at several scientific institutions in the field...
was the first to begin excavations on the site after a visit in 1938. Between 1946 and 1970, four archaeological projects were undertaken, with a lull until 1990. The archaeology work recommenced in 1990, putting emphasis on the establishment pattern of community and regional levels ("en el patrón de asentamiento en los niveles de comunidad y de región"..
The original Olmec name of the area, like nearly all of the Olmec language, is unknown. The name "San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán" was coined by Stirling in 1955, taken from the nearby present-day villages, and refers to the entire complex of sites.
The archaeological sites of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán can be visited Monday to Sunday, from 8:00 to 15:00 hours local time.
See also
- El AzuzulEl AzuzulEl Azuzul is an Olmec archaeological site in Veracruz, Mexico, a few kilometers south of the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán complex and generally considered contemporary with it . Named for the ranch on which it is located, El Azuzul is part of the Loma del Zapote complex...
, a small Olmec site just southeast of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán and perhaps part of the complex. - Tres ZapotesTres ZapotesTres Zapotes is a Mesoamerican archaeological site located in the south-central Gulf Lowlands of Mexico in the Papaloapan River plain. Tres Zapotes is sometimes referred to as the third major Olmec capital , although Tres Zapotes' Olmec phase constitutes only a portion of the site’s history, which...
, a major Olmec and post-Olmec site roughly 100 miles (160 km) northwest of the San Lorenzo complex.
