The Olmecs
America's First Civilization
Richard A. Diehl
Founding Editor Glyn Daniel
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| ‘Richard Diehl has written the first truly complete and authoritative account of this 3,000-year-old culture…’ | – Michael D. Coe,
Yale University |
This book is also available in a hardbound edition.
The Olmecs of southern Mexico are America’s oldest civilization and Mesoamerica’s ‘Mother Culture’. Long famous for their Colossal Heads carved from giant boulders, the Olmecs have fascinated the public and archaeologists alike since the 1940s when National Geographic magazine reported the initial explorations of their centres.
The Olmecs presents the first modern overview of information from recent archaeological field projects and studies of Olmec art. In addition to detailed consideration of Olmec life, culture and art, it examines the Olmec presence in the surrounding areas of Mexico and their role in the formation of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilization. Profusely illustrated, this attractively written survey will become the standard work on this enigmatic culture.
Despite well-publicized discoveries of spectacular basalt sculptures, portable jade objects and richly decorated pottery vessels, until recently almost nothing was known about Olmec history, foreign contacts and daily life. Now archaeologists have recovered information that allows them to assemble a remarkably broad picture of Olmec culture and its impact on later Mexican civilizations.
Richard A. Diehl is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa. He has conducted archaeological investigations in Mexicoat Tula and the Basin of Mexico, as well as San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, La Mojarra and Matacapan in southern Veracruz state. His books include Tula: The Toltec Capitalof Ancient Mexico, In the Land of the Olmecs (with Michael D. Coe), and Mesoamerica after the Decline of Teotihuacan: AD 700–900 (co-edited with Janet Catherine Berlo).
Also of interest:
The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya:
An Illustrated Dictionary
The Art of Mesoamerica: From Olmec to Aztec
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|  |  | | | | ISBN 0500285039 | | ISBN-13 978-0500285039 | | | | 24.1 x 15.9 cm | | Paperback | | 208pp | | 152 illustrations, 20 in colour | | First published 2006 | | | | £9.95 | | | |  | | | | 
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