With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Carl J. Wendt and an international team of colleagues will conduct two field seasons of archaeological research on the Mexican Gulf Coast at the medium-sized Olmec (1200-500 B.C.) site of Los Soldados. The team will collect household-level data from the Middle Formative period (1000-400 BC) site of that is situated 11 km southwest of the La Venta capital. The resulting data will be used to (1) develop a ceramic typology and ceramic stratigraphic sequence for the La Venta region, (2) elucidate domestic organization, domestic ritual, and subsistence adaptations, and (3) make inferences on regional resource control and political economy. Not only will household archaeology increase our understanding of Olmec community structure and domestic organization, Middle Formative domestic activities are a key to understanding larger questions of household socioeconomics and or cultural complexity.
Archaeologists believe that the Olmec were the first "complex" society in Middle America and that the roots of later civilizations such as the Maya can be traced back to this base. Thus the research is highly significant in a New World context. The work will also shed light on the processes which led to the emergence of complex societies and thus has relevance within a broader context.
This project is significant and unique in Olmec studies in that it takes a "bottom-up" approach to the study of the Middle Formative Olmec by collecting household-level data from a range of domestic contexts across a secondary center to address questions and test hypotheses on Olmec domestic organization, subsistence patterning, and regional resource control. The research will build on the body of household archaeology theory and method to generate a much clearer picture of Middle Formative Olmec daily life, exchange networks and procurement systems, the organization domestic craft production, and how people adapted to and modified their tropical lowland environment. The "bottom-up"/household approach contrasts with most other studies of Olmec society and polity that draw inferences from the more grandiose aspects of the society such as stone monument carving and transport. By measuring differences in household assemblages, Wendt and his team will be able to determine what the Olmec elite actually controlled, and investigate the scale of the control, rather than drawing inferences indirectly from measures of monument transport or artistic skill, which often result in erroneous impressions.
The broader impact of the research is that it will contribute to undergraduate and graduate student learning, help build and strengthen international partnerships (US and Mexico), and employ household archaeology to study ancient daily life in Mesoamerica as well as the nature of economic and political control in an early Mesoamerican society. More broadly, this research will help elucidate the processes and factors involved in the rise and organization of complex societies in Mesoamerica in particular, and the New World in general. Results also will be used to contribute to and build on theory on power strategies used by elite in early complex societies by providing data on one specific instance of what resources and commodities La Venta elite actually controlled.
