Olmec Giant Stone Heads Mystery Solved?

reply to post by Hanslune


I have been there, visited several cities. I met some people who still live and breath maya and still go to shamans instead of priests like the colonized Mexicans do.
i didnt say the all looked afrikan, only the gigantic heads do and i also Said that the also look verk Asian to me. Its hard to say WHO the olmecs really were because of all the different enterpretations we see all the time.

It's a misery to all of us really, some of the so called Olmec we have seen could have been people that worshiped them because they were the great ones that came before them and perhaps were not Olmec themselves.

Who knows, who knows!

Originally posted by Teahupoo
This Continent would be far better off if Columbus had never lost his way and stumbled upon our shores.
"Native American" NOT Indian

Really? What an interesting statement. Who would you have rather stumbled across it, and why would that have made any subsequent events very much different?
Or are you fantasizing that without Columbus and co., the entire continent would remain in splendid, idyllic isolation even today, and if a Google Earth user from somewhere else on the planet occasionally spun the globe the wrong way by accident and found themselves looking down at Tennessee or Brazil, they would think "wow that place looks green," then dismiss it and zoom in on Amsterdam?

For that matter, why stop at wishing Columbus never happened? Perhaps everything would have been much better for everyone all around if no one had crossed the Bering Straights into the "New World" all those years ago.

Originally posted by ZeroGhost
Great thread. Very interesting all points of view. We might assume the world was wholly different then. I always marveled at the wonder you get from observing the culture through artifacts and lost language. As a visual artist symbols are my stock and trade for communicating information.

I have several books on the Pre-Columbian cultures and from many points of view. Some of the images you guys got where new to me. Must catch up. One though I found was found in dense jungles of Columbia and was considered Olmec. I used it in a illustration for an album cover several years ago. I cannot find the original picture, but my illustration of it was accurate, so to add to the mix here is the illustration.


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/7e67622864c94238.jpg[/atsimg]

Salamandra

There is hidden message about the fragility of our ecosystem in the image. Hint: Earth and Moon. Each part is important to the whole.

Great thread and discussion. I may just clip the whole thing for my files!

ZG

Nice drawing, but what is it supposed to represent?

I found this as a result of your current Olmec thread and was astounded! Your theory bears a great resemblance to one I've postulated for years.

I spent 20+ years running field schools on a small, Mississippian village site at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi. It was a college field school run on a tourist site so we did public education as well as the college credit. During those 20 years of observation of the tourists and the students, I formed my own theories about how the mounds got built.
Ask most Southeastern archaeologists why the mounds were constructed and you'll get an answer something along the lines of: To elevate important public or private structures. Mine's different and it is similar to yours in that it involves sports and their part in the culture.
My theory is that the mounds got built as seating for the ballgames. They got built by fans who were more than willing to go out and dig dirt, pack it into a basket and take it and dump it into a pile. So long as at the end of the day, week, year, they got to see some good ballgames and chow down on some good food.
I liked to try out my theory on tourists who were wearing logos of sports teams, asking them how many days a year they would work to have a good seat to see their favorite teams play.

So are the heads depicted by the Olmec actual depictions---like a hall of fame? or are they the mascots---like the University of Kentucky Wildcat or the University of Florida Gator?
Look around at our giant statuary today---will future generations classify some of us as the "Mouse Cult" because we've raised monumental statuary to Micky and Minnie?

I have exactly 7 words as a reply: YOU CAN'T GET DNA FROM A STONE. That is all smart guy.
a reply to: SLAYER69

originally posted by: lostinspace
Great work Slayer69. Here’s my contribution to your thread.

The Basque People had legends of giants which they called the Jentilak. These giants were known for their stone throwing abilities. This is the mythical explanation for the large scattered boulders throughout Western Europe. This Basque legend is thought to have been the inspiration for the ball game called Pilota.

The Pilota ball court looks strikingly similar to the Mesoamerican ball court.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/fe73c730f4997f1a.jpg[/atsimg]

I believe there’s a missing culture that ties these two continents together.

Check out my thread below.
The Olmec and ancient Basque peoples share a common myth

I think your theory of there being a missing culture that ties these two continents, and perhaps others together my well be correct. Here is something that might just fit into this jigsaw.

Oldest known human DNA

and, also

a new collection of 400,000-year-old hominins — ancient humans — may be a common ancestor to Neanderthals and Denisovans

John Hawks, associate professor of anthropology at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Every time we’ve looked at the DNA of (ancient humans) we’ve found something we didn’t expect,” Hawks said. “It’s just not divergence and connecting ancestors as we go back in the past. We’re connecting across populations and there are more populations than we thought there were.”