Olmec alternative origin speculations
Olmec alternative origin speculations are non-mainstream
Mainstream scientific consensus
The great majority of scholars who specialize in Mesoamerican history, archaeology and linguistics remain unconvinced by alternative origin speculations.[1] Many are more critical and regard the promotion of such unfounded theories as a form of ethnocentric racism at the expense of indigenous Americans.[2] The consensus view maintained across publications in peer-reviewed academic journals that are concerned with Mesoamerican and other pre-Columbian research is that the Olmec and their achievements arose from influences and traditions that were wholly indigenous to the region, or at least the New World, and there is no reliable material evidence to suggest otherwise.[3] They, and their neighbouring cultures with whom they had contact, developed their own characters which were founded entirely on a remarkably interlinked and ancient cultural and agricultural heritage that was locally shared, but arose independently of any extra-hemispheric influences.[4]
DNA
A study of mitochondrial DNA in 2018 was carried out on two Olmec individuals, one from San Lorenzo and the other from Loma del Zapote. Both individuals were found to belong to
African origins

Some writers suggest that the Olmecs were related to peoples of Africa, based primarily on their interpretation of facial features of Olmec statues. They additionally contend that epigraphical, genetic, and osteological evidence supports their claims.[citation needed] The idea was first suggested by José Melgar, who discovered the first
Claims of epigraphic evidence
Some researchers claim that the Mesoamerican writing systems are related to African scripts. In the early 19th century, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque proposed that the Maya inscriptions were probably related to the Libyco-Berber writing of Africa.[10] Leo Wiener argued that Arabized "Black" West Africans influenced the cultures of Mexico which alongside the discovery of the Olmec heads resulted in more speculation,[11] in particular, the symbols on the Tuxtla Statuette, Teo Mask,[citation needed] and the celts (tools) in Offering 4 at La Venta.
These assertions have found no support among Mesoamerican researchers. While mainstream scholars have made significant progress translating the Maya script, researchers have yet to translate Olmec glyphs.
Genetic studies
Claims of osteological evidence
Polish craniologist Andrzej Wiercinski claims that some of the Olmecs were of African origin.
To determine the racial heritage of the skeletons, Wiercinski used classic diagnostic traits, determined by craniometric and cranioscopic methods, as well as the Polish Comparative-Morphological School skeletal reference collection. These measurements were then compared against three crania sets from Poland, Mongolia and Uganda to represent three racial categories which allowed Wiercinski to sort each skull into one or more racial categories.
Based on his comparisons, Wiercinski found that 14% of the skeletons from Tlatilco and 4.5% of the skeletons from Cerro de las Mesas had elements of "Black" racial composition.
In the last section of his paper, Wiercinski compared the physiognomy of the skeletons to corresponding examples of Olmec sculptures and bas-reliefs on the
Wiercinski summarizes his research by offering the following "ethnogenetical hypotheses":[15]
- The indigenous rootstock of Tlatilco and Cerro de las Mesas consists of "Ainoid, Arctic, and Pacific racial elements".
- "A next migratory wave" brought in additional Pacific as well as "Laponoid" elements.
- "Some Chinese influence of Shang Period could penetrate Mesoamerica"
- "A strange transatlantic, more or less sporadic migration" brought Bushmenoidelements.
Wiercinski's research methods and conclusions are not accepted by the vast majority of Mesoamerican scholars, in part because of his reliance on the Polish Comparative-Morphological methodology which limits the placement of skull types within a very narrow spectrum that is often within Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid. Native Americans are thus made to fit within these groups which often yields false and contradictory assumptions as a result of sample bias.
An interdisciplinary analysis of Native American skulls confirmed that Beringia "was the homeland of Native Americans" and stated that "The evolution and diffusion of an extremely derived north-east Asian phenotype, the high heterogeneity of founder groups, and the beginning of in situ New World evolution shaped by migration and genetic drift explains the entire pattern of past and present Native American variation. Most modern populations can be shown to have a mosaic of generalized-derived traits, while a few of them (Aleut-Eskimos) display the derived extreme also present in northeast Asia, and others present a rather generalized, ancestral morphology (Pericu, Aztecs, and Paleoamericans)".[16]

Chinese origins
Some writers claim that the Olmec civilization came into existence with the help of Chinese refugees, particularly at the end of the Shang dynasty.[18] In 1975, Betty Meggers of the Smithsonian Institution argued that the Olmec civilization originated due to Shang Chinese influences around 1200 BC.[19] In a 1996 book, Mike Xu, with the aid of Chen Hanping, claimed that the very same La Venta celts discussed above actually bore Chinese characters.[20][21] These claims are unsupported by mainstream Mesoamerican researchers.[22] The evidence relied on by Mike Xu, including the coincidence of markings on Olmec pottery with those on Chinese oracle bone writings, the significance of jade in both cultures and the shared knowledge of the position of true North, was discussed in an article by Claire Liu in 1997.[23]
Jaredite origins
In the
However,
Some Mormon scholars therefore identify the Olmec civilization with the Jaredites, citing similarities and noting that the period in which the Olmecs flourished and later declined corresponds roughly with the Jaredite civilization timeline.
Nordic origins

According to
The presence of Uncle Sam inspired Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer and author of The Kon-Tiki Expedition, among others to claim a Nordic ancestry for at least some of the Olmec leadership ... [However], it is extremely misleading to use the testimony of artistic representations to prove ethnic theories. The Olmec were American Indians, not Negroes (as Melgar had thought) or Nordic supermen.[29]
In popular culture
"The Olmec Football Player"[30] is a 1980 short story by Katherine MacLean. In it, at least one of the Olmec colossal heads depicts an African-American college student who traveled back in time while wearing his football helmet.
In The Mysterious Cities of Gold, the few remaining Olmecs are described as being descendants of Atlanteans.
See also
- Ancient Egyptian race controversy
- Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories
- Settlement of the Americas
- Francisco Plancarte y Navarrete (Tamoanchán: the state of Morelos and the beginning of civilization in Mexico)
Footnotes
- ^ See Grove (1976) or Ortiz de Montellano (1997).
- ^ Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs an article from Current Anthropology Volume 38, Number 3, June 1997, pp 419-441 Reproduced with permission
- ^ Taube, p. 17. "There simply is no material evidence of any Pre-Hispanic contact between the Old World and Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century."
- ^ Diehl (2004); Coe (1968).
- ^ Genetic Affiliation of Pre-Hispanic and Contemporary Mayas Through Maternal Linage [sic] (Ochoa-Lugo 2016)
- ^ Villamar Becerril Enrique, “Estudios de ADN y el origen de los olmecas”, Arqueología Mexicana, núm. 150, pp. 40-41.(2019 Archived 27 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Stirling, p. 2, who cites Melgar (1869) and Melgar (1871).
- JSTOR 483368.
- ^ Ortíz de Montellano, Bernard & Gabriel Haslip Viera & Warren Barbour 1997
- ^ C. S. Rafinesque, "First letter to Mr. Champollion on the Graphic systems of Otolum or Palenque in Central America", in The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing, Houston, S. et al., Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press (2001), (pp. 45-47); and C. S. Rafinesque, "Second letter to Mr. Champollion--Elements of the Glyphs", ibid., pp. 48-53.
- ^ Leo Wiener, Africa and the Discovery of America, Volume 3, Philadelphia, PA: Innes & Sons (1922) p. 271.
- ^ Rensberger, B. (September, 1988). "Black kings of ancient America", Science Digest, 74-77 and 122. See also Wiercinski, A. (1972a) "An anthropological study on the origin of 'Olmecs'", Swiatowit, 33, p. 143-174.
- ^ Wiercinski (1972b).
- ^ Wiercinski (1972b), p.160
- ^ Wiercinski, p. 158 or p. 171.
- ^ Rolando González-José et al. "The Peopling of America: Craniofacial Shape Variation on a Continental Scale and Its Interpretation from an Interdisciplinary View." [PDF file]. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 137, no. 2 (2008): 175-187.
- ^ Pool, p. 92, who cites Gordon Ekholm (1964) "Transpacific Contacts" in Prehistoric Man in the New World JD Jennings and E. Norbeck, eds., Chicago: University of Chicago, pp. 489—510.
- William H. McNeill
- ^ Meggers.
- ^ Xu, Mike. "Transpacific Contacts?". Archived from the original on August 2, 2001. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
- ISBN 978-0964869424.
- ^ See for example Grove (1976).
- ^ 台灣光華雜誌 Taiwan-Panorama.com. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
- ^ Roger G. Kennedy, Hidden Cities: The Discovery and Loss of Ancient North American Civilization, 1994, pp. 228-231; Robert Silverberg, "and the mound-builders vanished from the earth",American Heritage Magazine, June 1969, Volume 20, Issue 4
- ^ Southerton (2004, p.157)
- ^ Coon, W. Vincent, Choice Above All Other Lands – Book of Mormon Covenant Lands According to the Best Sources, Ch. 4, "Unsigned Articles and a Popular Book", pp. 64–104
- ^ Joseph Smith (editor), "Traits of the Mosaic History Found Among the Aztaeca Nations", Times and Seasons, June 15, 1842, Vol. 3, No. 16, pp 818–820; signed with Joseph Smith’s "ED". Smith comments on a chapter from Josiah Priest's American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West. Coon notes that Smith uses precisely the same description as Priest, Humboldt, and others in describing the Great Lakes region as "the lake country". See, "Lake", The Book of Mormon & "Mound-Builder" America
- ^ see Coe (1968, p. 59)
- ^ Coe, p. 55
- ^ "Title: The Olmec Football Player".
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- Wiercinski, A. (1972b). "An anthropological study on the origin of 'Olmecs'", Swiatowit, 33:1972, pp. 143–174.
- Wiercinski, A. & Jairazbhoy, R.A. (1975) "Comment", The New Diffusionist, 5 (18),5
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