Talk:Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures

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A fact from Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 February 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the causes and extent of Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures are still being debated long after they were first raised at a conference in Tuxtla Gutiérrez in 1942?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/February.

Wikipedia

To Do list

I believe that this article needs at least:

A better map or maps.
Better citations and links for the pottery analysis section.
A socko ending.
More general editing.

Also, do David Grove and Karl Taube or Stephen Houston have anything else to say (i.e. not already covered) about this issue? Madman 23:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I realize that there are a lot of quotes in this article, but since this is essentially a survey article about various archaeologists' theories, I thought it was best if the archaeologists could speak for themselves.

Hey Madman- blimey, this is excellent stuff! Kudos for a thoughtful and well-structured article, which tackles a complicated and involved series of issues with some aplomb.

Right now I can only think of a couple of minor additions to the 'to-do' list:

maybe some more exposition in light of the recent Cascajal Block find
Some survey/comparison with other early-mid Formative cultures & sites (Pacific coast Ojo de Agua, La Blanca, etc) and Mirador Basin (Nakbe, El Mirador, etc) sites, others such as Cuello, San Jose Mogote
mention the dates of the quoted viewpoints (puts into some perspective since state of knowledge quite dynamic)
There's material online from the Dumbarton Oaks Olmec conf which could be used- see also Taube's [=http://www.doaks.org/OlmecArt.pdf 'Olmec art'] (PDF)
Some more on the relationships which have been hypothesised between Olmec deities & other contemporary or later iconographic traditions
Some survey on the use of 'Olmec' and 'Olmecoid' when describing styles

I'll leave to you the honours of putting forward some interesting factoid from this recently created article for WP:DYK.

I'll see about adding what I can, though presently I'm a bit tied up in some offline committments...Again- very well done, indeed! Cheers, --cjllw | TALK 07:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd call the ending "socko" as is, actually. Great work. Definitely ready to be linked prominently from Olmec.--Homunq 03:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Olmec/Olmecs - Aztec/Aztecs

just a quick question concerning the pluralization of the word "Olmec" and other "-ec" ending cultural names. I was always of the mind that the "-ec" implicitly refers to a pluralized group and, as such, doesn't require the "-s" at the end. Analogousin some extent to Maya/Mayas/Mayans. E.g., I never write Olmecs, Aztecs, Zapotecs - I don't know if this right, and it might just be personal preference, but I wanted to get an idea of what some of you other folk out think (I almost started editing the intro paragraph). Maybe someone with a linguistic background has some insight? thanks! -- Oaxaca dan 18:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

About the only guideline/consensus established thus far for these here is to use Maya for both singular and plural nouns as well as the adjectival form, with the exception when talking about languages (in which case Mayan). Like you I habitually drop the esses from the ethnonym plurals, and also avoid what I presume are the Spanish gendered endings (-o/-a) except for a couple of (probably arbitrary) instances such as Mexica or teotihuacano. It might just be a case of personal preference, but would be open to other ideas and input. I recall this being discussed at some point, but I can't for the moment recall where or if there was any conclusion reached. I think that pretty much all of the -ec ethnonyms are hispanicised forms of the nahuatl-language names for these peoples, but am not sure whether these ultimately derive from the "place" grammatical form or the "people from place" one. Probably a bit of both, maybe a nahuatl-savvy contributor like Maunus could explain it better.--cjllw | TALK 04:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Banner rating

I bumped this article's rating up to "High" - considering the topic, how important it is to the study of Mesoamerican cultures (which is kinda what this whole Wikiproject:Mesoamerica thing is kinda about, no?), and so on. Hope that's cool. -- Oaxaca dan 07:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, totally agree with that. Given the importance of intercultural influences generally, it would be great to have a few others of these, say on central mexican influences, maya influences, &c.--cjllw | TALK 08:54, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image copyright problem with Image:Tlapacoya Bowl.PNG

The image Image:Tlapacoya Bowl.PNG is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --14:28, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Coe and Diehl quotes

I think the part qith the quotes by Coe and Diehl give undue weight to the mother culture argument. It presents the quote as if Diehl is somehow an impartial judge here when he is in fact more like a student faithfully defending his mentors ideas. I think that works like Pool, Blomst and Joyce show that rather than "having convinced everyone but the die hard sceptics" the discussion has become close obsolecent and the future will need to recognize a much more nuanced picture of early Olmec interaction with other areas than either the "mother culture" or the "primus inter pares".·Maunus·ƛ· 13:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Missing references

The author of the article cites scholars like Joyce or Townsend, but gives no references for his citations in the reference section. Please adjust! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.45.6.119 (talk) 14:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are absolutely right - I am correcting that immediately.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]