The Olmec agriculture was the main livelihood activity for the Olmec civilization, one of the largest in Mesoamerica during the Preclassic. Considered the mother of Mesoamerican cultures, Olmec agriculture laid the foundations, not only practical, but also organizational, for societies that would extend from the Pre-Classic to the Pre-Hispanic period.
Located in southern Mexico, the Olmecs adapted to their advantage the different conditions of the terrain, inventing and developing different techniques for agricultural production throughout their entire period of existence (1500 BC - 500 BC approximately).
The main region where the Olmec presence was known corresponds to the Gulf of Mexico, the main regions of this culture being San Lorenzo de Teotihuacán, La Venta and Tres Zapotes. A region that presented natural characteristics of thick jungle and fluvial bodies of great importance.
Olmec agriculture goes beyond cultivation or domestication of the environment; It served as the impetus for the first organizational structures of Mesoamerican societies, in terms of the division of labor, the treatment of land and commercial activities when it came to inputs that they could not produce.
Main products of Olmec agriculture
The basis of the Olmec diet was the product of their agriculture, in conjunction with a mixed practice of fishing and hunting. Corn, beans, squash, chili and tomato were the main products grown.
More recent studies have shown the possibility of other agricultural items such as avocado, tomato and potato.
Other archaeological supports have handled the possibility that the Olmecs had contact, and even cultivated, inedible products such as cotton and tobacco, due to the knowledge that nearby civilizations demonstrated, and that allows us to deduce that the Olmecs could mark the precedent.
The first signs of Olmec maize cultivation and production date back to 1400 BC; Although consumed, at first it was not considered a weighty element in the Olmec diet, but it quickly took on greater cultural importance.
The Olmecs began to consume variants with corn in their diet such as nixtamal, which consisted of a mixture of corn with ashes and seashells.
Nixtamal
The importance of corn was such in the Olmec civilization, that they had their own deity associated with agriculture: the feathered serpent.
Despite the attributed qualities, the importance of this deity over others for Olmec agriculture has been debated.
Adaptability to the environment
The Olmecs settled near river bodies, so hunting and fishing were other livelihood activities. Mollusks, fish and turtles were the main fishery products, maintaining a high nutritional level in the Olmec diet, unlike other regions.
The dense land environment did not provide the best conditions for hunting, although it is known that jaguars, wild boars, deer, tapirs, among others, inhabited the region. However, little is known of the importance they had in the Olmec diet.
Most of the products cultivated by the Olmec civilization are still produced today. The Olmecs also took advantage of the consumption of local plants and fungi typical of the region.
The regions occupied by the Olmecs presented totally different ecosystems in the Pre-Classic.
This civilization had to generate an agriculture adapted to the dense jungle in which they were, with uneven terrain and river difficulties that they had to overcome.
Cultivation techniques
The main technique used in Olmec crops was slash and burn, which consisted of burning an entire extension of plants and weeds on the ground, letting the ash settle, which works as fertilizer, and then sowing the required product. Most of the Olmec farmlands present the qualities resulting from this technique.
Under this technique, the Olmecs traditionally worked two crops a year: milpa del año, which corresponds to the main harvest, and tonamil, corresponding to winter.
The main harvest is the most difficult, since the virgin ground must be cleared for the first time.
According to the calendars studied, the land clearing was carried out during March; vegetation was burned during May, the driest month, and cultivation began in June. The harvest used to take place between mid-November and December.
As for the winter harvest (tonamil), the cultivation began in January to harvest between May and June. The main crop is known to provide a greater amount of feed per hectare compared to the winter crop.
For the studies on the Olmec civilization, the fact that two large harvests were carried out twice a year is synonymous with food abundance, not counting the crops except in peripheral areas or centered on river farming.
By the time the Olmecs had this method of work, corn had already acquired an almost divine importance, therefore most of the extensions of arable land were used for the cultivation of this item.
Another agricultural technique that is claimed to have been used by the Olmecs, although to a lesser degree, consisted of allowing flooding, through irrigation and using river sediment as fertilizer, on controlled sectors of land to allow new crops.
However, this technique proved to be unfavorable in the long term, as it eroded the land, eventually rendering it unusable.
The Olmecs used to place their homes on high ground, with which they were safe from eventual floods, allowing them to be near fertile lands.
The Olmec settlements were distributed throughout the southern territory of Mexico in such a way that they could meet their needs with both inland and shore cultivation.
The Olmecs, as a Mesoamerican base civilization, made tools that facilitated their survival and some were applied, among other things, in agriculture.
Stone, wood and bone were the main materials of the tools and were used on the crops where the vegetation was cut.
Olmec agriculture allowed not only an effective subsistence method, through relative control over the natural environment in the occupied regions, but also as a precedent that led to the development of new technologies, new rituals and new organizational structures that continually evolve.
References
- Bernal, I. (1969). The Olmec World. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Clark, JE (nd). Who were the Olmecs? 45-55.
- Clark, JE (1987). Politics, prismatic blades, and Mesoamerican civilization. In The Organization of Core Technology (pp. 259-284).
- Clark, JE, Gibson, JL, & Zeldier, J. (2010). First Towns in the Americas. In Becoming Villagers: Comparing Early Village Societies (pp. 205-245). Brigham Young University.
- Guillen, AC (nd). The Olmecs in Mesoamerica. Mexico DF, Mexico.
- Minster, C. (2017, March 6). thoughtco. Retrieved from
- Vanderwarker, AM (2006). Farming, Hunting, and Fishing in the Olmec World. Austin: University of Texas Press.