|
|
The first sculptural tradition is already apparent in the features and effects of the site's most primitive sculptures. In these sculptures the minimal surface modifications were ground and grooved into the surface to enhance natural volumes which already suggested the sculpture's subject matter. More advanced sculptures from this tradition display successive technical refinements of this artistic interest in modeled surfaces. Ultimately, this sculptural tradition is replaced by the second sculptural tradition with its interest in starkly different artistic issues.
The second sculptural tradition first appears, already fully developed, on sculptures representing the most advanced expressions of the first sculptural tradition. Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of this new sculptural tradition is the inclusion of glyphic texts in a fully developed writing system. One sculpture (Monument 3) combines sculptural themes from the first tradition with depictive modes from the second tradition, suggesting that artists familiar with each tradition were working at the site at the time this piece was carved.
Ultimately, forms from the second sculptural tradition are found exclusively and the sculptural forms of the first tradition fall into disuse. The ascendancy of the second tradition is also apparent in the use of a circular altar placed before an upright stela. This stela and altar complex are associated only with the second traddition and suggest a profound ritual and cultural change is reflected in the introduction of the second sculptural tradition.
The first sculptural tradition at Tres Zapotes consists of Pre-Olmec, Early Olmec and Middle Olmec sculptural expressions such as the boulder sculptures, "pot belly" sculptures and colossal heads found in sculpture groups 1, 2, 3 and 4. A transitional period is evinced in Group 5 by the combinant Olmec/ Maya sculptures such as Stela C with its IS date (Stirling 1939). The sculptural tradition which replaces these combinant Olmec/Maya sculptural expressions consists of Maya sculptural expressions such as Stela E. These forms are found in sculpture group 6 and in the secondary context of the first Stela C fragment, as a stela set-up behind a large circular altar. Remarkably, the presence of clear Maya sculptural influence at Tres Zapotes has been largely ignored because popular theory would make Maya art a later "daughter" of Olmec art rather than the contemporaneous "sister" art that the Tres Zapotes sculptural record suggests.
John Graham has suggested that the Abaj Takalik sculpture sequence shows Olmec sculpture beginning in Pacific Guatemala and then transferring wholesale to the Gulf coast "Olmec Heartland" under pressure from expanding Maya influence (Graham 1979, 1982 and 1989a). The first sculptural tradition at Tres Zapotes contains a tantalizing few local sculptures which correspond to some of the Pre-Olmec and Early Olmec sculptural developments found at Abaj Takalik in Pacific Guatemala. It is reasonable, therefore, to suggest that Pre-Olmec and Early Olmec remains in the gulf coast indicate a broader distribution of pre- and early Olmec than Graham's theory would permit. However, more work at Gulf Coast sites such as Tres Zapotes must be completed and more sculpture must be found before these hints of parallels between the two sites' early sculptural sequences can be properly evaluated.
However, parallels between the two site's later sculptural sequences are better documented. At both Abaj Takalik and Tres Zapotes sculptural sequences bear evidence of Maya influence on the demise of local Olmec sculptural traditions. This evidence is manifested differently at each site. At Abaj Takalik a long and well represented sequence of local Pre-Olmec to Early Olmec sculptural development is briefly combined with and is then replaced by fully developed Early Maya sculpture. In contrast, at Tres Zapotes a poorly represented sequence of Pre-Olmec and Early Olmec sculpture followed by a well represented Middle Olmec sequence is briefly combined with and is then replaced by Early Maya sculpture. Again, unlike Early Maya sculpture at Abaj Takalik, which generates no obvious heirs, the Maya sculpture at Tres Zapotes is clearly related to later Maya Style sculpture in the Tuxtla region, particularly at sites such as La Mojarra and Cerro de las Mesas. Also, the demise of Olmec style at Tres Zapotes is followed by a continuation of the style (Late Olmec?) at sites such as Aparico and Los Idolos still further to the north.
Present epigraphic and stylistic evidence at Abaj Takalik suggests the Maya sculptural tradition may have become established in Pacific Guatemala as early as 500 BC (Graham and Porter 1989). Present epigraphic and stylistic evidence at Tres Zapotes suggests the Maya sculptural tradition dates to about the beginning of our era in the gulf coast. Though the epigraphic evidence for dating these stylistic successions is confined to a handful of Maya style IS dates, the stylistic evidence encompasses a large corpus of Pre-Olmec, Early-Olmec sculpture from Pacific Guatemala as well as an equally significant corpus of more advanced Middle Olmec sculpture from the Gulf coast.
If Maya pressure on Pacific Guatemalan Olmec is almost 500 years earlier than significant Maya influence on Gulf coast Olmec it is not surprising that Gulf coast Olmec remains show more advanced developments than do Pacific Guatemalan Olmec remains. If the expansion of Maya influence exerted pressure from the south and east on the Gulf coast Olmec, such pressure could also have provided an impetus for Olmec colonization at Central Mexican Olmec sites such as Chalcatzingo, Oxtotitlan and Teopanicuanitlan. However, the scarcity and poor quality of most evidence bearing on the Olmec demands caution in both generating and in accepting such speculation. Even the best known and studied of Olmec remains, are not as well known as was once thought (Porter 1989).
