Hundreds of years earlier than anyone had imagined, simple villages had given way to a complex society governed by kings and priests, with impressive ceremonial centers and artworks. Today many find the term "mother culture" misleading, but clearly the Olmecs came first to develop in Mesoamerica. A characteristic motif of Olmec "rubber people" art is a human face with a jaguar mouth, sometimes called a "were-jaguar" (as in werewolf). This suggests a derivation of Olmec religion from shamanistic shape-shifting. There is evidence that the Olmecs practiced human sacrifice, including that of infants.
Olmec artifacts bearing images of the were-jaguar, distinguished by the combined physical characteristics of humans and felines, have been found scattered throughout Mexico.The remains of their ceremonial centers are found in the humid lowlands near the Gulf Coast in the states of Veracruz and Tabasco. San Lorenzo, the collective name of three related sites in the Coatzacoalcos River basin, was an important Olmec political-religious center that flourished between 1200 and 900 BC. It is noted for the discovery of the first conduit drainage system known in the Americas and six colossal basalt heads each measuring eight to nine feet in height and weighing 20-40 tons.
Carved from stone obtained 50 miles or more from the site, these uniquely Olmec monoliths have strikingly Negroid facial features and appear to be wearing helmets.Archaeologists discovered the first Olmec head at Tres Zapotes where they also found Stela C, bearing the long count date 31 BC. More gigantic Olmec heads, along with a number of massive stone altars and stelae, were found at La Venta, the culture's most important center. Presumably the stone works were somehow floated via waterways to La Venta, located on an island near the Gulf Coast. Sharing essential characteristics of all later Mesoamerican centers, the site is laid out along a north-south axis, with a huge clay and earth pyramid its most prominent feature. The center appears to have been deliberately destroyed around 400-300 BC.
The Olmecs were apparently the first Mesoamerican people to fathom the concept of zero, develop a calendar, and create a hieroglyphic writing system. These intellectual achievements, along with Olmec myths and rituals, were influential in the subsequent Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec and Aztec cultures. In the years to come, artifacts from the culture later termed "Olmec" turned up at widespread sites in Mexico and adjacent Central America, with the greatest number of characteristic themes being present in the region of the original discovery. For decades these findings were misinterpreted. The Maya were thought of as the "mother culture" of Mexico, and therefore the Olmecs were either insignificant or Mayan themselves, and in any case later in development.
Then in 1939 a carving was discovered near the gigantic head with a characteristic Olmec design on one side and a date symbol on the other. This revealed a shocking truth: the Olmecs had a far greater right to be considered the mother culture.
