Neutron Activation Analysis on Olmec Pottery: A View From La Venta

The Problem

As part of the 1997 PALV field season, research was conducted to test the zonal exchange of ceramic resources to La Venta from San Lorenzo. Obviously both sites had abundant clay resources readily available, but the finer qualities of clays observed at San Lorenzo, which included bentonite and kaolin types, were absent at La Venta. Hypothetically, if Olmec zones did complement one another with abundant resources for deficient resources, then observable exchange of ceramic materials to La Venta from San Lorenzo would support a model of zonal complementarity. Furthermore, if foreign ceramic materials were found at La Venta, then it could be furthermore proposed that abundant resources at La Venta were cooperatively exchanged back to the deficient San Lorenzo. In the course of this research, three assumptions of zonal complementarity had to be addressed.

First, the specific types of materials that were exchanged for other materials in zonal complementarity was not addressed in Grove’s model. It seemed logical, however, to suggest that if such a cooperative system was in play between the all four zones, then basalt was not traded only for tar, or clay was not traded only for salt. In other words, zones containing multiple resources were probably exchanging for other multiple resources, not simply one resource for another.

Second, there existed a possibility that other zones outside the Olmec area also participated in a cooperative exchange for deficient resources. An immediate problem of the present model was to explain the occurrence of exotic goods foreign to all zones. Grove’s model did account for the sharing of available resources between the four Olmec zones, but did not explain the importation of exotic goods such as jade and obsidian that have been sourced outside the Olmec area. Having examples in the archaeological record of resources non-local to all Olmec zones begs the question if zonal complementarity is an appropriate model when restricted to the Olmec area. Thus, when attempting to explain the occurrence of non-local and exotic goods, one would need to re-shape Grove’s model to address resources foreign to these zones and explain what interaction took place to obtain those resources. Nevertheless, for this research, zonal complementarity remained a valid model for testing because ceramic resource exchange could be monitored between La Venta and San Lorenzo.

Finally, coeval occupations were required for active participation in such a system of exchange. Currently, it is held that San Lorenzo had its greatest successes during the San Lorenzo phase of the Early Formative (1200-900 B.C.). However, La Venta is generally viewed to have had its successes during the Middle Formative period (800-400 B.C.). In order for zonal complementarity to offer an explanation to the spatial patterning of Olmec sites, La Venta occupations must align with San Lorenzo occupations. More specifically, the bentonite and kaolin clays at San Lorenzo could not have been cooperatively exchanged for other resources at La Venta if that site was not yet occupied. Coe and Diehl (1980) have argued that because San Lorenzo phase diagnostic ceramic types (Calzadas Carved, Límon Incised, and Xochiltepec White) have not been recovered in any La Venta assemblage, that the main occupation at La Venta occurred later in time. Furthermore in Coe & Diehl (1980), Cyphers argued that nothing found at La Venta appears to be earlier than the Nacaste phase (ca. 900-700 B.C.) at San Lorenzo. Clearly the present evidence does suggest a later Middle Formative placement for La Venta’s apogee. Yet, recent work by Rust and Sharer (1988) and Gonzalez Lauck (1988) at La Venta have identified a series of levee occupations located along an ancient river channel now called the Río Bari. As far as the Early Formative, occupations have been realized at La Venta and three of its peripheral levee site: Isla Alor, Isla Yucateca, and San Andrés (Figure 2). Radiometric dates confirm the temporal alignment with the San Lorenzo phase at San Lorenzo, but as yet none of the diagnostic markers have been recovered. Yet, the lack of ceramic evidence at La Venta to confirm contemporaneous occupations is not in itself a proof that concurrent occupations did not exist. Furthermore, to say that La Venta did not have an Early Formative occupation based on not having diagnostic markers from another sites assemblage does not view La Venta as an independent identity that could have existed on its own or interacted with other regions at that time. Lastly, if the scale of La Venta’s emergent occupation, during the Early Formative, is not directly dependent upon participation in zonal complementarity, then such a test, at the ceramic level, is possible.

Unique to Olmec pottery at La Venta though, is a generally poor state of preservation. Most frequently, pottery remains are often excavated with little or no surface having been badly eroded from the post-depositional effects of La Venta’s high acidic levels in the regions soil (Drucker, 1952). It seemed logical, however, that because two of the three diagnostics of San Lorenzo phase pottery require a decorative element on the surface of the sherd or vessel (Calzadas Carved and Límon Incised), that if these types were poorly preserved they could go unrecognized in earlier attempts at identification in various La Venta collections. The ultimate objective of this research was to see if La Venta and San Lorenzo were interacting during the Early Formative by monitoring vessel movement and test Grove’s model at the ceramic level.

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