Olmecn.adj.

1852 De Bow's Rev. Oct. 344 Of the aborigines, there are the descendants of the ancient Toltecs, Chichimecos, Acolhuis, Olmecs.., all preserving their primitive idioms.

1869 Littell's Living Age 12 June 698/2 These tribes in turn traced back their religion, their architecture, and their customs..to the Olmecs and Xicalanques, two powerful races of immense antiquity.

1885 Amer. Naturalist 19 544 Veytia says the Olmecs raised chili before the time of the Toltecs.

1914 T. A. Joyce Mexican Archaeol. v. 125 Though bows were found among the Olmec and Huaxtec, they must have been of quite late introduction.

1932 Nat. Hist. 32 519/2 A highly civilized people called the Olmec..lived anciently as far north as Tlaxcala, but were later dispersed to southern Vera Cruz, Chiapas, southern Puebla, and eastern Oaxaca. They were famed for their work in jade and turquoise.

1947 M. Covarrubias Mexico South iv. 129 The builders of the cities of El Tajín and Teotihuacán..were the Olmecs proper.

1962 G. Ashe Land to West viii. 222 A clay Fire-god of the prehistoric Olmecs on the Gulf coast.

1977 Sci. Amer. Mar. 116/1 The Olmec, one of the earliest of the complex societies in the region, built major ceremonial centres on the low-lying coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico; examples are San Lorenzo and La Venta.

1989 National Geographic Mar. 404/1 Archaeologists are getting their first look at the everyday life of the Olmec, a pre-Maya people whose culture thrived between 1150 and 500 B.C. in the lowlands along the Gulf coast of Mexico.

1997 L. Campbell Amer. Indian Langs. v. 157/1 It is hypothesized that both the Mesoamerican culture area (co-tradition) and the Mesoamerican linguistic area were shaped by the same forces—in part at least by extensive influence from the Olmecs (the earliest highly successful civilization of the area).

1880 N. Amer. Rev. Oct. 307 The Tlascala statue does not represent the Olmec chief Cuapintzintli..because the Iztaës, a people much more ancient than the Olmecs, could not have known of him.

1932 Nat. Hist. 32 520/2 Perhaps investigations in the Olmec area would clarify the much discussed relationship between the Mexicans and the Mayas.

1943 M. W. Stirling Stone Monuments S. Mexico 7 Two years later he released a study..of the giant head in which he emphasized its ‘Ethiopian’ features, features which have since been identified with the style of art called Olmec.

1965 M. D. Coe in R. Wauchope Handbk. Middle Amer. Indians III. ii. 738 (heading) The Olmec style and its distributions.

1973 Times 15 Oct. 11/8 The Olmec Forerunners, the archaic predecessors of the Maya though probably not themselves Maya.

1991 Metropolitan Home Apr. 74/1 Their style is part deco, part Olmec, at once familiar and exotic.

2000 B. Kirkwood Hist. Mexico (heading) 16 Olmec and Mayan Civilizations.