| Midden deposits from San Lorenzo indicate the Early Formative Olmec subsisted on agricultural products such as maize as well as aquatic and terrestrial fauna. What is unknown is the contribution of each of these subsistence inputs to the overall diet. While it is assumed that an agricultural subsistence economy underwrote Olmec society, a settlement pattern analysis of site location with respect to ecological setting leads to an inference that the Early Formative Olmec relied heavily on aquatic resources with a shift to maize agriculture during the Middle Formative. As such, current hypotheses relating the rise of the Olmec to the circumscription of favored agricultural areas must be reevaluated. In truth, it is not necessarily agriculture, per se, that allows for the emergence of sociopolitical complexity but rather a subsistence regime that permits for sedentism and sufficient surplus to support institutions. Agriculture often, but not always, fulfilled this role. The Olmec reliance on aquatic resources adds a new dimension of variability to the more traditional viewpoint that in Mesoamerica, agriculture, primarily based on maize, underwrote the early sedentary village and subsequent emergence of sociopolitical complexity. Considered a "pristine" culture, the Olmec represent one of the best archaeological cultures to study variables related to the emergence of sociopolitical complexity. |
