Posted on 11/12/2003 10:08:07 AM PST by blam
Ancient Bones Found in Honduras Said to Be Olmec
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - Human bones believed to date from the ancient Olmec civilization have been found in southeastern Honduras, suggesting the influential culture extended farther than previously thought, Honduran authorities said on Tuesday.
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Carmen Fajardo, at the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, said it appeared to be the first time Olmec remains have been found outside the so-called Mesoamerican corridor that stretches from Mexico to central Honduras.
"For the first time various bones have been found in Honduras with a deformity to the skull ... characteristic of the Olmec culture which considered this a sign of beauty," Fajardo told Reuters.
Olmec culture originated in Mexico and extended to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador (news - web sites) and parts of Honduras. Many cultural and religious elements of ancient civilizations including the Aztecs and Mayans have Olmec roots.
Olmec pottery has been discovered in northern Honduras dating back to 1600 B.C. within the Mesoamerican zone but not human remains, Fajardo said.
Four skulls, various bones and 10 plates dating back to 1500 B.C. were found on a mountain called Cerro de las Cuevas de las Campanas, 90 miles east of the capital Tegucigalpa, near the border with Nicaragua.
"These remains ... were found outside the Mesoamerican zone where the Olmec culture, known as the mother culture of Mesoamerica, exerted its influence," Fajardo said.
Southeastern Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama are considered part of an intermediate area influenced by the culture of the Andes.
"Our conclusions so far are preliminary ... but we still have to do carbon and DNA tests," she said.
"It could be that there is a third cultural area we haven't identified where the Mesoamerican area and intermediate meet," said Fajardo.
...They wore the old-style football helmets.
So you're saying that the Olmec were all related to Beldar from Remulak! ;)
Yup. It looks like (from the statues recovered) all the racial groups are represented in the Olmec ruins.
Been lost in the Yucatan 'jungle' a couple times myself.
I have known both filipinos and polynesians with those same thick lips and flat noses. My best friend when I was 8 was half filipino and half caucasian. He, his mother(filipino), and both his sisters had those same features.
That must have been very interesting. Was your trip before or after Belizean independence? A few years ago when we visited Caracol, very near Belize's border with Guatemala, we were told the Irish Brigade was having live fire practice in the area and not to be alarmed at the sound of gunshots. Tensions with Guatemala were high after a couple of recent violent border incursions in which Guatemalan "trespassers" had been killed near Caracol. The Brits were letting Guatemala know Belize was no pushover.
Meanwhile, the Belizean ambassador to Guatemala had been taken hostage in reprisal and when we crossed the border from Belize to visit Tikal things were decidedly jittery. Something serious was afoot and our ashen-faced guide was clearly a worried man when we turistas were herded into a small room at the border crossing station. The first thing that struck us was the Guatemalan map on the wall: no Belize. It was Guatemala all the way to the Caribbean. To Guatemalans, Belize does not and has never existed.
After a lot of palaver we were allowed to continue but apart from delightful individual people and gorgeous locales, we found the mood of Guatemala very dark. We never got used to guards with AK-47s lurking in the bushes around our hotel, presumably to protect us from being kidnapped for ransom. A couple of weeks after our return home we read of an incident in a remote Guatemalan village in which a tour guide and a couple of tourists were killed by villagers. Somehow they became convinced the visitors were there to steal their children and they attacked the tourbus. I don't think I'd care for anything much more primitive than what we experienced.
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"When we learned of the age of the artifacts," Cooper writes, “we realized that what we'd found had nothing to do with seventeenth-century Spain... I contacted the Mexican government and was put in touch with the head of the national archaeology department, Pablo Bush Romero."
Together with Mexican archeologists the two went back to the site. After some excavating, Cooper writes,
"The age of the ruins was confirmed: 3000 B.C. Compared with other advanced civilizations, relatively little was known about this one --called the Olmec."
Proceeding to describe some of the amazing discoveries about the Olmecs and their achievements, Gordon Cooper continues thus:
"Engineers, farmers, artisans, and traders, the Olmecs had a remarkable civilization. But it is still not known where they originated... Among the findings that intrigued me most: celestial navigation symbols and formulas that, when translated, turned out to be mathematical formulas used to this day for navigation, and accurate drawings of constellations, some of which would not be officially 'discovered' until the age of modern telescopes."
It was this, rather than his experiences as an astronaut, that triggered Gordon Cooper's "Leap of faith": "This left me wondering: Why have celestial navigation signs if they weren't navigating celestially?” And he asks: If ‘someone’ had helped the Olmecs with this knowledge, from whom did they get it?
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