Olmec Origins
The Olmec are somewhat mysterious, not much is really known about their beginning and there is speculation they did it on their own or perhaps they were Africans who sailed over, no one really knows for sure. The Olmec name itself is not correct, as it was the Aztec name meaning "rubber people" for the people who resided in the same area 2,000 years after the "Olmec" civilization. Their real name is not known for sure, but other Mesoamerican accounts appear to refer to ancient Olmec as "Tamoanchan" or another term used to describe the Olmec culture is tenocelome, meaning "mouth of the jaguar." Whatever their true name is, perhaps by trying to understand the ideas at the base of the outer expression of their culture we will see similarities or a direct connection with another or other cultures of that time or before and gain an essential understanding of who they were.
Olmec Calendar
Their calendar began as a "calendar year" consisting of 52 years, and ended up as a calendar year that is very much like ours today. They had different words for days, months, etc. but the same idea was there. Their year was only a few days off of ours, 360 days as opposed to 365. The only form of writing that they needed for their calendar was a couple of symbols to explain their numbers. A dot symbolized one and a horizontal line symbolized five. There is speculation the Olmec might have invented the Long Count calendar and the zero, yet the earliest known Long Count date artifact is several centuries after the Olmec civilization ended. It is likely their calendar formed the basis for the other calendars that came with other Mesoamerican cultures who followed them.
