It has been suggested that a new string be developed to follow more in the
development of agriculture and civilization in ancient America. Here's an
example of the printing press concept and writing dating many thousands of
years ago, well before the fabled Maya, Toltec and Aztecs came into being.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/...ec-writing.htm

There is evidence through art and glyphs that some two thousand or more
before Christ these innovators from the Gulf of Mexico, the Olmecs, mastered
agriculture and offered this know-how to tribes across the whole American
continent. Some glyphs imply that the missionaries said "Here, learn to grow
maize... or (chose one): 1- be killed by my battle axe, 2- forever be
saddled to hunt and forage, 3- be stupid and die of starvation, 4- Plant
maize and pay tribute or else.

For my fictional story of the origins of the Olmec wade through my Maya
Phenomena until you get to the black man thatching his roof and Maama's trip
into the past/present/future.... about halfway through the book
http://home.att.net/~impresario/MayaPhenomena1.htm

Wayne



Wayne

1. First, plant the corn.

2. Wait a few months.

3. Pray for rain. Eat mosquito larvae and ants to stay alive.

4. Sacrifice an enemy warrior or an ugly virgin or a useless
handicapped member of your own tribe to curry favor with the gods.
Wonder what curry would taste like.

5. Pray for rain again. Watch your cornstalks dry up and die.

6. Steal your enemy's stash of dried corn.

7. Make your old lady grind it up and make tortillas out of it.

8. Fry the tortillas in peccary grease. Or armadillo grease. Or
whatever.

9. Fold the tortillas and fill them up with ground up, cooked peccary
meat. Or gopher
meat. Or grasshoppers. Or the ground up heart and liver of the enemy
warrior you sacrificed in step 4.

10 Eat a bunch of authentic tacos and dream about Aztlan.

11 Ask a shaman to fast and have a vision to explain what would go good
on an authentic taco.

12. Try to imagine what lettuce and cheese on the tacos would taste
like. Try to imagine a fast food chain that sells millions of tacos.

13. While the shaman is fasting and having visions, eat his share of
the tacos.

14. While sitting around waiting for your bowels to move, carve a weird
statue of somebody with big lips.

15. Bury the statue and laugh to yourself about what future
archaeologists will think when they dig it up.

That's a fascinating link. I have books on books (both in and out of
dat ) about the Maya, but have not encountered enough about either the
Olmec of the Toltec.
I focused on the Maya in my articles primarily because there is so
much more available, and unless you are writng a ten thousand page
book, you have to find a starting place.
But I am goign to pursue a little more of this.

Don't you think that this is part of the reason that so many people
can't grasp Mexican cooking? Not to mention that it is confused with
Tex-Mex in most people's minds.

I don't know if you can answer this, but have you seen anything that
would associate the process of Niztamalization with the Olmecs? I've
only seen it referenced tp the Mayans, and, of course, the Aztecs. I
would like to have been there when they discovered that process. Of
course, that decisive moment is lost forever.

Your story looks incredibly long. I promise to read it, but at a later
date just due to my own busy time Sorry to make you wait. Busy will
end in a couple of weeks.

"chipotle" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> That's a fascinating link. I have books on books (both in and out of
> dat ) about the Maya, but have not encountered enough about either the
> Olmec of the Toltec.
> I focused on the Maya in my articles primarily because there is so
> much more available, and unless you are writng a ten thousand page

..===snip for brevity

I suggest just skimming the book where Spring is raped and her brother kills
the 'jaguar' that impregnated her with the future Olmec... Just for fun.

I have been a welcome guest of Ignacio Bernal, (Director) at the Museo de
Anropologia in Chaputltepec, and of Dr. Ignacio Rauldon a tireless amateur
researcher with a million 35mm photos of on-site artifacts, Mexico on
several occasions, and have been the diner and lunch guest of several
serious researchers such as Dr. O.L. Gonzalez Calderon (Author of Cabecitas
Olmecas, Origenes de la Primera Civilizacion de America), another dedicated
amateur in Coatzalcoatl who dug with Sterling all those years ago.

To sum it all up in response to your question regarding the discovery of
nixtamal, the process used to make maize digestible for human consumption:
There are two main geographical areas where this 'miracle' took place,
almost simultaneously. One is La Venta (and environ), the original site
Mathew Stirling and Michael Coe where the huge monolithic Olmec heads were
discovered, the other is in the eastern shores of lake Texcoco now known as
Tlatilco, famous for the 'Beautiful ladies of Tlatilco'. (The oldest known
ceramic art in all of America).

A few things had to be invented before true nixtamal would make it's
appearance. Pots, hybridization and of course controlled fire. We know
controlled fire has been around almost as long as mankind appeared on the
globe millions of years ago. We also know that maize without the catalyst of
calcium hydroxide (lye, lime) http://www.fao.org/docrep/T0395E/T0395E07.htm
is of limited nutrition whereas when the catalyst is added, maize becomes a
whole nutrient sufficient to sustain civilized societies through an
agricultural process.

How was it discovered? This is the great mystery. But one can imagine a
campfire where somebody has been playing with clay and fell asleep letting
the clay drop into the dying embers of the night-fire. Next morning the clay
thing was hard and contained the night's dew. Thus, the birth of pottery as
the young girl, while father and uncles away hunting, mothers and aunts
gathering, she worked even more clay into more intricate things. Ergo, the
pot. So why not put the pot and water over the fire with some insignificant
dried seeds she'd been carrying around to plant at the next campground.
She'd already noticed that larger grains produced more grains and had that
sixth sense that gave birth to hybridization. So years go by and the pot
evolves and boiling stuff evolves but still no agriculture nor good
tortillas.

Until...

Until her great, great, great grandchild puts a handful of maize kernels
into a pot and falls asleep. During the night a breeze picks up ash from the
fire. A fire rich in calcium hydroxide, only a pinch is required. Lo and
behold the next day the kernels are squishable between fingers and has a
nice taste. Well squishing with fingers is ok for a taste or two, but how
about sharing with the tribe? So now the metate is born, and the rest is
history because now you have the basic elements that led to the birth of all
American civilizations through the cultivation of corn and the tortilla.
Planting the bigger seeds, planting beans, potatoes, squash and chile
together, encouraging chile plants and fruit trees to grow. The holla (pot)
and comal (platter) metate (grinder) and understanding how to get the most
calcium hydroxide from the campfire ash. Ergo, tortillas. And thus time on
their hands to create art, a society, kings, serfs, magicians,
doctors....war.

Wayne

Oh my, Wayne, you are a romantic. A good thing to be becuase romantics
dream up the possibilities of the world.

I would like to contact you out of this forum and don't know how to do
it. I love the form except when it eats my time with rantings and
ravings. That does happen, alas.
Oh well.