The Olmec

The first civilization in the Americas was founded by a people we call Olmecs.

The Olmec came to Mexico from Africa over 5000 years ago. The Olmec were a cosmopolitan people.  As a result we find many other nationalities living in the Olmec cities in addition to Africans, from many parts of the Old World. Alexander von Wuthenau in has recorded the iconographic evidence for the European and Chinese people that traded with the Olmec people. The ancient civilization of the Olmec thrived, in what are now the Mexican state of Veracruz and Tabasco. The Olmec also built huge pyramids and created their own form of hieroglyphic writing. They carved four huge heads, each weighing 60 ton and over 7 feet tall from basalt. Scientist believed the heads represent rain spirit? LOL!!

The races recorded in this table are based on the Polish Comparative-Morphological School (PCMS).

And from now on we will refer to this image as Table 2. The PCMS terms are misleading. As mentioned earlier the Dongolan , Armenoid, and Equatorial groups refer to African people with varying facial features which are all Blacks. This is obvious when we look at the iconographic and sculptural evidence used by Wiercinski (1972b) to support his conclusions.

Wiercinski (1972b) compared the physiognomy of the Olmecs to corresponding examples of Olmec sculptures and bas-reliefs on the stelas. For example, Wiercinski (1972b, p.160) makes it clear that the colossal Olmec heads represent the Dongolan type. It is interesting to note that the empirical frequencies of the Dongolan type at Tlatilco is .231, this was more than twice as high as Wiercinski's theoretical figure of .101, for the presence of Dongolans at Tlatilco.

The other possible African type found at Tlatilco and Cerro were the Laponoid group.

The Laponoid group represents the Austroloid-Melanesian type of (Negro) Pacific Islander, not the Mongolian type. If we add together the following percent of the Olmecs represented in Table 2, by the Laponoid (21.2%), Equatorial (13.5), and Armenoid (18.3) groups we can assume that at least 53 percent of the Olmecs at Tlatilco were Africans or Blacks.

Using the same figures recorded in Table 2 for Cerro, we observe that 40.8 percent of these Olmecs would have been classified as Black if they lived in contemporary America. Rossum (1996) has criticized the work of Wiercinski because he found that not only blacks, but whites were also present in ancient America. To support this view he,claims that Wiercinski was wrong because he found that Negro/Black people lived in Shang China that he compared ancient skeletons to modern Old World people.

First, it was not surprising that Wiercinski found affinities between African and ancient Chinese populations, because everyone knows that many Negro/African/Oceanic skeletons (referred to as Loponoid by the Polish school) have been found in ancient China see: Kwang-chih Chang The Archaeology of ancient China (1976,1977, p.76,1987, pp.64,68). These Blacks were spread throughout Kwangsi, Kwantung, Szechwan, Yunnan and Pearl River delta. Skeletons from Liu-Chiang and Dawenkou, early Neolithic sites found in China, were also Negro. Moreover, the Dawenkou skeletons show skull deformation and extraction of teeth customs, analogous to customs among Blacks in Polynesia and Africa.

Secondly, Rossum argues that Wiercinski was wrong about Blacks in ancient America because a comparison of modern native American skeletal material and the ancient Olmec skeletal material indicate no admixture. The study of Vargas and Rossum are flawed.

Izapa Stela no.5

They are flawed because the skeletal reference collection they used in their comparison of Olmec skeletal remains and modern Amerindian populations because the Mexicans have been mixing with African and European populations since the 1500's. This has left many components of these Old World people within and among Mexican Amerindians.

The iconography of the classic Olmec and Mayan civilization show no correspondence in facial features. But many contemporary Maya and other Amerind groups show African characteristics and DNA. Underhill, et al (1996) found that the Mayan people have an African Y chromosome. This would explain the "puffy" faces of contemporary Amerinds, which are incongruent with the Mayan type associated with classic Mayan sculptures and stelas.

Wiercinski on the other hand, compared his SRC to an unmixed European and African sample. This comparison avoided the use of skeletal material that is clearly mixed with Africans and Europeans, in much the same way as the Afro-American people he discussed in his essay who have acquired "white" features since mixing with whites due to the slave trade. A. von Wuthenau (1980), and Wiercinski (1972b) highlight the numerous art pieces depicting the African or Black variety which made up the Olmec people.



This re-analysis of the Olmec skeletal material from Tlatilco and Cerro, which correctly identifies Armenoid, Dongolan and Loponoid as euphemisms for "Negro" make it clear that a substantial number of the Olmecs were Blacks support the art evidence and writing which point to an African origin for Olmec civilization. In conclusion, the Olmec people were called Xi. They did not speak a Mixe-Zoque language they spoke a Mande language, which is the substratum language for many Mexican languages. The Olmec came from Saharan Africa 3200 years ago.

They came in boats which are depicted in the Izapa Stela no.5, in twelve migratory waves. These Proto-Olmecs belonged to seven clans which served as the base for the Olmec people.

Izapa Stela no.5

Physical anthropologist use many terms to refer to the African type represented by Olmec skeletal remains including Armenoid, Dongolan, Loponoid and Equatorial. The evidence of African skeletons found at many Olmec sites, and their trading partners from the Old World found by Dr. Andrzej Wiercinski prove the cosmopolitan nature of Olmec society.

This skeletal evidence explains the discovery of many African tribes in Mexico and Central America when Columbus discovered the Americas (de Quatrefages, 1836). The skeletal material from Tlatilco and Cerro de las Mesas and evidence that the Olmecs used an African writing to inscribe their monuments and artifacts, make it clear that Africans were a predominant part of the Olmec population. These Olmecs constructed complex pyramids and large sculptured monuments weighing tons. The Maya during the Pre-Classic period built pyramids over the Olmec pyramids to disguise the Olmec origin of these pyramids.

Sources: Alexander von Wuthenau, Izapa Stela no.5 transcribed, Dr. Andrzej Wiercinski, Underhill, et al, Rossum