Laguna de los Cerros

Laguna de los Cerros is a little-excavated Olmec and Classical era archaeological site, located in the vicinity of Corral Nuevo, within the municipality of Acayucan, in the Mexican state of Veracruz, in the southern foothills of the Tuxtla Mountains, some south of the Laguna Catemaco. With Tres Zapotes, San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, and La Venta, Laguna de los Cerros is considered one of the four major Olmec centers. Laguna de los Cerros ("lake of the hills") was so named because of the nearly 100 mounds dotting the landscape. The basic architectural pattern consists of long parallel mounds flanking large rectangular plazas. Conical mounds mark the plaza ends. Larger mounds, formerly raised residential platforms, are associated with the thinner parallel mounds. It has been confirmed that the site was not occupied during the postclassical period. Most of the mounds date from the Classical era, roughly 250 CE through 900 CE. This region, and the early Olmec people, presumably was the penetration point for commerce between the Mexico highlands and Tuxtepec routes. The first major culture in Veracruz was the Olmecs. The Olmecs settled in the Coatzacoalcos River region and it became the center of Olmec culture. The main ceremonial center here was San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán. Other major centers in the region include Tres Zapotes in the city of Veracruz and La Venta in Tabasco. The culture reached its height about 2,600 years ago, with its best-known artistic expression being the colossal stone heads. These ceremonial sites were the most complex of that early time period. For this reason, many anthropologists consider the Olmec civilization to be the mother civilization of the many Mesoamerican cultures that followed it. By 300 BCE, this culture was eclipsed by other emerging cultures in Mesoamerica. Due to its location in a pass between the river valleys to the south and the northwest, and its proximity to basalt sources in the volcanic Tuxtla Mountains to the north, Laguna de los Cerros was occupied over an uncharacteristically long period – perhaps close to 2,000 years, from Olmec times until the Classic era.