Tomb A

The most impressive of the two was a large, rectangular chamber whose walls and roof were made of two-ton, imported, natural columnar basalt pillars. The tips of the vertical columns that formed its northern side were visible above the ground surface (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:23). Later designated Tomb A and Monument 7, it is worthy of the name: a stone vault approximately 2.2 meters tall within which one could stand upright (Figure 3). Its roof was formed of nine horizontally laid stones supported by uprights on the east, south, and west walls. The north wall, made of five columns tilted against the northernmost roof span, is considered the “front doorway” (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:23; Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:638) or “entryway” (Drucker Reference Drucker and Oehser1975:103). It was from this north side that Stirlings entered to investigate its contents. The chamber was filled with soil, mostly the same bright orange-red clay that enveloped it (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:23). It took a day just to relocate the five columnar basalts that blocked the doorway, but the Stirlings then removed the fill and recovered the artifacts in only two additional days (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:640–643).

Figure 3.

Reconstruction of Tomb A, constructed of natural columnar basalt, without its surrounding matrix as if it could stand upright unaided. The slanting columns leaning against the roof on the north side make up the “doorway.”

As described by the Stirlings (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:640), removing the red clay fill revealed a low “burial platform” ca. 30.5 centimeters (“about a foot”) high extending in the “rear [2.44 m] eight feet of the tomb.” It was topped by irregularly placed, clay-covered, imported limestone flagstones that were themselves covered with bright red “cinnabar” (brilliant red pigment was identified as cinnabar in the field records; Figure 4). What else was found on this platform diverges drastically between Drucker's (Reference Drucker1952) and the Stirlings’ (Reference Stirling and Stirling1942) accounts (see also Colman Reference Colman2010:208, 211), a major discrepancy made more frustrating by the absence of published photos or drawings of the artifacts in situ. The two accounts cannot be reconciled, leaving archaeologists to choose one over the other or to ignore the controversy altogether (Table 1). The Stirlings led the excavation (Drucker Reference Drucker and Oehser1975:103), but it was Drucker's responsibility to clean and map the tomb and to describe and categorize the objects found (Drucker Reference Drucker1952). The entirety of the finds in Tomb A were later designated Offering 1942-A (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:Appendix 1).

Figure 4.

Plan of Tomb A's interior, indicating the limestone slabs (shaded) atop the low platform in the southern half of the tomb, made from published photographs and field records. The locations of Bundles 1 and 2 are based on Drucker (Reference Drucker1952:Figure 10a). Our project numbered the individual basalt columns making up the east, south, and west walls and the limestone slabs.

Table 1.

Contrasting accounts of Tomb A finds: Stirling (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:640–642) versus Drucker (Reference Drucker1952:23–26) and Drucker et al. (Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:Appendix 1).

^a Items listed somewhat in order of occurrence in different locations in their account of the excavation of Tomb A.

^b “Bundle” assignment.

^c List.

^d An unpublished 1942 National Geographic Society photo shows three D-shaped pieces and a tubular bead with these two figurines. They are not mentioned here but see reference to beads in Finds 5 and 10.

^e There appear to be two mirrors side-by-side in the photograph of finds (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:Plate I upper).

Drucker's (Reference Drucker1952) report on the 1942 excavations provided the first published plan and profile drawings of the tomb (1952: Figures 9 and 10). His version is more often utilized, possibly for that reason, although others prefer the Stirlings’ narrative account of what was found (Colman Reference Colman2010:108; González Lauck Reference González Lauck, Benson and de la Fuente1996). According to Drucker, heavily coated with red cinnabar paint “were the remains of two bundle burials, each probably containing at least one individual,” spatially separated. Drucker's (Reference Drucker1952:Figure 10) plan view shows Bundle 1 as a large oval area about 1.5 × 1 m in the north (front) half of the platform, and Bundle 2 as a smaller area, about 1 × 0.75 m, tucked in the rear near the southeast corner. His plan view also includes eight limestone flagstones, but they do not match their appearance in the photographs (Figure 4; Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:636).

Importantly, Drucker (Reference Drucker1952:23) observed that there was little left of the “acid-leached bones save for a mass of splinters, stained a dark chocolate-brown color. They appeared to be remnants of long bones mainly, and gave the impression of small light bones, probably of juveniles.” He also noted that in Bundle 2 were some deciduous teeth, another indication of the presence of a child or children. Small objects, mostly of jade, were associated with each bundle, and Drucker (Reference Drucker1952:23–26) listed these accordingly. The 1959 report on the 1955 excavations (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959: Appendix 1), however, provides only a summary list of the Offering 1942-A objects by type and does not separate them among two presumed bundle burials (Table 1).

The Stirlings’ report of the 1942 finds was published in an issue of National Geographic that same year, in the form of a narrative of what they found as the matrix was removed. Within an irregular 15.24-cm (6 in) thick layer of cinnabar on the platform, they encountered “mere traces of bones of apparently three persons placed with heads to the south” (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:640; Stirling Reference Stirling and Oehser1975:305). The red cinnabar gave the impression of being placed inside wrapped bundles, which presumably held the bodies within the tomb (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:642). With one of these persons were two figurines (catalogued in Drucker's Bundle 1). The Stirlings enumerated about a dozen spatially separated clusters of objects, including milk teeth in the southeast corner. There are vague references to relative positions, but almost nothing more to indicate which objects go with any of the three persons they believed were laid out on the platform. For example, ca. 0.61 meters (2 ft) away from the pair of figurines was a jade replica clamshell, and under it was a jade figurine of a seated female. These two adjacent objects were divided between Bundles 1 (clamshell) and 2 (figurine) in Drucker's Reference Drucker1952 account, and there are other examples where Drucker separated what the Stirlings had put together. Some objects described in one report are not mentioned in the other, including a burned skullcap with a ceramic pot noted only by the Stirlings (Table 1; Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:641). Furthermore, in the National Geographic report only a selection of the artifacts was photographed (1942:Plate 1, upper), in a group referred to as a “cache,” although it includes pieces retrieved from both Tombs A and B as well as Offering 1942-D.

In short, we cannot be certain today which objects were found where in Tomb A in terms of spatial associations, nor the extent and context of human remains. Although there were definite costume ornaments—two sets of earspools according to the Stirlings; a necklace or headdress made of six, real, stingray spines along with a jade replica spine; and several tubular beads—they are not described as being laid out as if arranged on a corpse, even in the Stirlings’ assessment of three individuals laid with heads to the south. If that were the case, this arrangement of artifacts in red “cinnabar” does not match what was encountered in most of the other presumed tombs.

Tomb B

The other stone container on the summit of Mound A-2 consisted of two parts: a 3 × 1 m worked rectangular sandstone slab, cracked in several places, that topped a hollowed-out box, oriented north-south. At 2.81 m long and just over 96 cm wide (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:26), the box was made from a different kind of local sandstone than its cover (Drucker Reference Drucker and Oehser1975:104). Three exterior sides of the box were sculpted in low-relief, giving it the overall appearance of a non-natural legged saurian creature whose head was to the north, facing Tomb A (Figure 5; Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:638). Like Tomb A, the coffer was filled with red clay and sand, and enveloped in red clay. It was later designated Tomb B and Monument 6. Not known at the time is that Tomb B was positioned directly over the center of Massive Offering 2, a single layer of worked serpentine blocks buried at the base of a deep pit excavated through Mound A-2 into the subsoil; some commentators have symbolically linked the two “offerings” (e.g., Pool [Reference Pool2007: 165], following Reilly[Reference Reilly and Kowalski1999:35]). Unfortunately, the sandstone box was also badly cracked and eroded when found. It continued to disintegrate and could not be salvaged (Heizer Reference Heizer1958:202).

Figure 5.

Reconstructed drawing of the relief carving on the Tomb B box. Drawing by Volk.

According to Drucker's (Reference Drucker1952:27) field report, six objects were recovered lying on the bottom of the box interior: a serpentine figurine, two jade earspools, each of which was accompanied by a jade pendant, and a pointed jade punch or awl. This assemblage was designated Offering 1942-B (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:Appendix 1). Ten years earlier, in their 1942 National Geographic article, Stirling and Stirling (Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:638), who took responsibility for its excavation as with Tomb A, described the find differently by referencing the relative positions of the objects. They assumed the coffer was a sarcophagus that held the corpse of a single individual laid out wearing regalia. The two earspools with their dangling pendants were spaced just far enough apart to indicate an absent head between them, oriented to the south with feet to the north, while the figurine and piercing instrument lay near the hip. In a delayed response to the Stirlings’ opinion, Drucker (Reference Drucker1952:27) allowed that although “to western eyes,” the box “gave the impression of a great sarcophagus, there was not the least indication that it had been used or even intended for a burial. There were no traces of bone–not even tooth caps or discoloration in the clay–in it.”

Tomb C

The following year, 1943, Wedel continued the work Drucker had begun (Drucker was serving in the war; Drucker Reference Drucker and Oehser1975:104), again under Stirling's direction. Extending the 1942 trench to the south, he encountered another stone construction in a smaller mound south of the walled Ceremonial Court (Mound A-3; Figure 2) 60 cm below the modern surface. It lay in a north-south alignment with Tombs A and B; this alignment was later designated Complex A's “centerline.” The feature was a very large (5.2 × 1.8 m), rectangular “cist” oriented east-west (Figure 6). Its walls, floor, and roof were made of dressed sandstone slabs; the roof slabs had caved into the red clay fill of its interior, the same matrix that surrounded it (Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:67–68, Plate 14a). The stone structure was designated Tomb C, and the objects within it comprise Offering 1943-G (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:Appendix 1).

Figure 6.

Plan of Mound A-3 showing Tombs C and D along with other caches and finds made in 1943, including Massive Offering 5 south of the mound. The edges of Mound A-3, assumed to have been a single rectilinear mound before it was covered with red clay in Phase IV, are only estimated based on profile drawings in the excavation field notes (RFHP-NAA).

On removing the clay fill, an elliptical layer of brilliant red cinnabar was encountered 20 cm above the stone floor. Around the cinnabar bed were 37 jade celts and three ceramic vessels. Under and within the cinnabar matrix were some 300 artifacts. Most were jade costume ornaments, including two earspools with “earbobs,” beads, pendants, and perforated spangles that were likely sewn to a textile garment (Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:67–68). In his account of this find in National Geographic that year, Stirling (Reference Stirling1943a:323) indicated that the cist held a single occupant whose bones “had disintegrated long ago.” From the positioning of the earspools, he ascertained that the head that wore them lay to the east, feet to the west, and across the waist area were 62 green jade beads that originally formed a double “necklace” along with a figurine, jade punch, and engraved obsidian core (Figure 7; Stirling Reference Stirling1943a:325; Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:Figure 22).

Figure 7.

Plan of Tomb C, with Offering 1943-G, in Mound A-3, based on Wedel (Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:Figure 22).

Wedel (Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:71) more circumspectly observed that all these latter objects “lay just above the floor slabs, and were completely surrounded by cinnabar…in such positions relative to each other as to suggest mortuary offerings on a burial.” But, he added, “Despite the most careful examination of this area, however, no trace whatsoever could be detected of bone, of tooth enamel, or of other human remains. There is thus no direct proof that this cist ever actually contained a burial.” His careful plan drawing of the tomb's major contents (Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:Figure 22) shows the two earspools lying flat on the cist floor, spatially separated as if by a human head, with the “bobs” or appendages arrayed in a north-south alignment away from the head and perpendicular to the presumed body. The beads were positioned in a slightly curved line across the presumed torso.

Tomb D

Also in 1943, within the centerline trench, “Tomb D” was located 13 m south of Tomb C in Mound A-3, although it does not live up to that designation (Figure 6; Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:73). Cinnabar was encountered about one meter below the modern surface, revealing a rectangular deposit some 30 × 50 cm in extent, with an east-west long axis as in Tomb C. At the bottom of the 22–25 cm thick cinnabar bed were eight jade objects, including two jade ear spools, jade earbobs, and tubular jade beads (Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:72–73, Plate 15b); altogether they make up Offering 1943-L. The earspools and bobs were arranged as if adorning a head, the bobs splayed out perpendicular to a presumed body. But the deposit was so small it could have accommodated only a child, according to Wedel (Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:73). Stirling (Reference Stirling1943a:Plate IV upper) referred to the Tomb D finds as “pathetic artifacts from a child's tomb.” As with Tomb C, “there were not the faintest traces of human bones, teeth, or other remains in the area” of the cinnabar (Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:73).

Tomb E

Tomb E was also encountered by Wedel and Stirling in 1943, when they moved 11 basalt columns that had been placed “irregularly” in a general north-south alignment in the space between Tombs A and B on Mound A-2 (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:27; Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:63). Excavating below them revealed a layer of bright red cinnabar filling an area 3.5 × 1.2 m, about 75 centimeters below the bottom edge of the columns, along with various jade artifacts. In 1942 those columnar basalts had been considered left-overs from the making of Tomb A (Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:63). Upon digging below where they lay, the 1943 excavators made a connection between the cinnabar feature and its basalt column “cover”; hence its designation as a tomb (Figure 8).

Figure 8.

Plan of the central summit of Mound A-2 in construction Phase IV showing the relative positions of Tombs A, B, and E, Offerings 1942-D and 1943-F, and the sandstone block placed in the fill of Massive Offering 2. Note that Offering 1943-F is off the centerline.

The assemblage yielded 108 objects, including scattered jade celts (as in Tomb C) and personal ornaments; it was later designated Offering 1943-F (Stirling Reference Stirling1943a:Plate IV, lower). Interestingly, it was not centered on the north-south centerline like the four other tombs. No drawing was published of the find, only photographs (Figure 9; Drucker Reference Drucker1952:Plates 13a and 13b; Grove Reference Grove1992:Figure 12). The photographs show how this assemblage was juxtaposed close to the “face” of the Tomb B saurian creature to its south, but over a meter deeper. They reveal two jade earspools with accompanying ear bobs. Just west of them was a discontinuous line formed by 35 beads and another small circle of 14 beads, as if strung jewelry (Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:63–64). The earspools were placed flat on the same surficial plane as the beads and the scattered celts. Their accompanying “bobs” were laid perpendicular to a presumed body oriented east-west, but one of them is positioned where a head should have been, and a few celts lie flat in what would be the torso area with the beads. Wedel (Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:64) explicitly doubted the status of Tomb E as a burial, calling it instead a “gravelike deposit” because “there were no scraps of bone, tooth enamel, or other items clearly identifiable as remains of a human skeleton.”

Figure 9.

Plan of Offering 1943-F (Tomb E) in Mound A-2, drawn from published photographs. Only larger artifacts visible in the photographs are shown.

1955 offerings

Complex A was not excavated again until 1955, when Drucker and Robert Heizer carried out an ambitious program of trenches and area excavations there and in adjacent Complex C (the great earthen pyramid). They did not encounter any funerary features on par with the stone-embellished Tombs A, B, C, and E. They determined, however, that the five tombs excavated in 1942–1943 occurred in the fourth and last of Complex A's major construction phases, which was stratigraphically distinguished by a layer of red or orange-red clay deposited throughout the complex (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:126; Drucker and Heizer Reference Drucker and Heizer1965:48). Furthermore, they recovered several features (among the various “Offerings”) with similarities to Tombs D and E; namely, a layer of red cinnabar with jade ornaments arranged as if on a single corpse, along with other artifacts, but lacking any stone construction or human remains. Significantly, these features were in strata dating to earlier construction phases. They were also in a different location: low clay platforms within the walled Ceremonial Court (Feature A-1) situated between Mounds A-2 and A-3 (Figure 2).

Offering 7 was put in the Northeast Platform possibly in a Phase I stratum, Offering 3 was in the South-Central Platform dating to Phase II, and Offerings 5 and 6 were also in the Northeast Platform but during Phase III (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959). Offering 3 consisted of a large number of jade and other objects placed in a bed of cinnabar. Unfortunately, their spatial associations were not observed because the deposit was disturbed by a bulldozer used for quickly removing the overburden in this part of the Ceremonial Court (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:146). Offerings 5–7 were notably similar to one another in the placement of artifacts in a bed of cinnabar and the arrangement of jade and other costume elements, as if worn by an intact body. This was especially striking in Offerings 5 and 6, which included earspools and a string of beads forming a belt worn at the waist (Figure 10; Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:162–174).

Figure 10.

Plan of the northern half of the Northeast Platform in Phase III with close-up views (see Detail A inset, top left) of published drawings of Offerings 5, 6, and 7 in situ, from Drucker et al. (Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:Figures 41, 44, and 45).

Interpretations: from elite tombs to a royal mortuary precinct

The five tombs, along with the similar features found in 1955, stimulated varied interpretations of La Venta's political and religious life—the power of its kings and the influence of royal mortuary ritual—that continue to impact conventional views of the Olmecs. Stirling (Reference Stirling1943a; Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942) had no doubt that these were burials of high-status individuals. He asserted that Tomb B, the sandstone sarcophagus, held a single “personage, doubtless of prominence” (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:638). As for Tomb C, Stirling (Reference Stirling1943a:323) opined that its single “occupant [was] undoubtedly a chieftain or priest of highest rank.” The “rich offerings of jade and other materials” convinced him that all these burials were of “important personages” (Stirling Reference Stirling and Oehser1975:306), a less specific identification than his earlier pronouncement that they were “rich and probably powerful rulers” (Stirling Reference Stirling1955:23). Furthermore, the fact that such highly embellished graves had been found only at La Venta among all the known Olmec sites suggested to him that it was “probably the ceremonial center for the entire Olmec region” (Stirling Reference Stirling and Oehser1975:306).

Heizer, who co-directed the 1955 excavations but was responsible for most of the final field report (letters from Robert F. Heizer to William Coe dated 1/21/1964 and 9/11/1964 [RFHP-NAA]), argued strongly for the critical importance of the tombs in late La Venta politics in that publication (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959) and some subsequent articles. He reiterated that the three “great tombs” (A–C) occurred exclusively in final construction Phase IV (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:127; Heizer Reference Heizer1960:200, 1961:53), but averred that Phase IV Tomb D (Offering 1943-L) and earlier grave-like caches found in 1955 (Offerings 5–7) were not actual burials but may “symbolize” burials (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:127).

Dating the major tombs to Phase IV was crucial to Heizer's interpretation of La Venta's downfall. He saw them as evidence of increasing “rigorous and autocratic control of the general population than during Phases I to III” (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:127), indicative of the late development of “class differences in the form of burials of high priests” (Heizer Reference Heizer1961:54). He hypothesized that this “highly differentiated class-structured society…became so top heavy that it broke down because of the inability or unwillingness of the general population to support it” (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:127). The tombs provided essential support for his argument that the growing power exerted by a tiny minority of individuals over the populace created an increasingly unstable situation that ultimately precipitated the demise of La Venta (Heizer Reference Heizer1960:220, Reference Heizer1961:50). As the labor required to make and furnish the tombs purportedly reveal, the rulers “imposed such oppressive demands upon the supporting population that the latter either withdrew its support and forced the abandonment of the ritual center, or actively engaged in a social revolt” (Heizer Reference Heizer1961:53; see also Bernal Reference Bernal, Heyden and Horcasitas1969:111; Heizer Reference Heizer1960:220). Utilizing different data, Clark (Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:142) similarly suggested that Tomb A is evidence for decline at La Venta, because he believes it was constructed of stone materials taken from elsewhere in Complex A, demonstrating an inability of La Venta's last rulers to import new materials.

Importantly, the 1959 multiauthored report on the 1955 La Venta excavations contained contrary statements about the tombs: Drucker (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:162, 169, 171) insisted within the portion he wrote that these were not burials at all, except for Tomb A, and Heizer (Reference Heizer1959:127) opined that the Phase IV tomb burials indicated increasing autocratic control by rulers that may have led to a societal collapse. The mishandling of the “burial” data was part of a brutal critique of the 1959 report by Coe and Stuckenrath (Reference Coe and Stuckenrath1964). They chided the reference to “rich tombs” given the absence of human remains and were unconvinced that even “Tomb” A housed “bundle burials” or “bundles” more generally, as reported by Drucker in 1952 (Coe and Stuckenrath Reference Coe and Stuckenrath1964:23). They believed that the few osseous remains found in Tomb A were placed there for some symbolic value, just like the artifacts, as was the case for some Maya caches, rather than “the rotted residue…of two funereally buried individuals” (Coe and Stuckenrath Reference Coe and Stuckenrath1964:23).

In their joint response to this attack the following year, Drucker and Heizer (Reference Drucker and Heizer1965:56, emphasis in original) reiterated that “no, and we repeat no, primary interments” were found with the offerings, and human skeletal material was recovered only in Tomb A as a secondary burial. “The two lots of human bones in question were obviously remnants collected and redeposited after some cleaning process. They were very incomplete, and consisted mainly of long bones, ribs, and the like, arranged compactly with their long axes parallel, manifestly having been tied or packaged for convenience in handling” (Drucker and Heizer Reference Drucker and Heizer1965:57). This had been Drucker's position since at least 1952 (and see Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:169). In a brief 1975 report on the 1942 excavations, Drucker (Reference Drucker and Oehser1975:103) further elaborated on the condition of the Tomb A bones: “The bone was too fragmentary and too badly decomposed by long exposure to soil acids for measurements. No skulls, or skull parts, vertebrae, pelvises, or hand and foot bones, could be recognized among the osseous remains. A small lot of human tooth caps, apparently juvenile (deciduous teeth with very slight wear), were found near one of the bundles.” By that time, he had “reconsidered” that these curated bundles of long bones were more likely “parts of the offering” (Drucker Reference Drucker and Oehser1975:104), as Coe and Stuckenrath (Reference Coe and Stuckenrath1964:23) had earlier suggested.

Nevertheless, despite that 1960s debate, admittedly within a lesser known publication, most Olmec scholars have accepted the original 1940s interpretation that Complex A housed the tombs of La Venta's, and by extension the Olmecs’, highest-status individuals (e.g., Bernal Reference Bernal, Heyden and Horcasitas1969:115; Clark Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:135; Coe Reference Coe1968:66; Diehl Reference Diehl and Benson1981:78, Reference Diehl2004:70; González Lauck Reference González Lauck, Benson and de la Fuente1996:76–78; Grove Reference Grove, Grove and Joyce1999:265–267; Lowe Reference Lowe1998:71; Luckert Reference Luckert1976:113; Pool Reference Pool2007:164, 177; Reilly Reference Reilly and Fields1994, Reference Reilly and Guthrie1995:35, Reference Reilly and Kowalski1999:29, 33, Reference Reilly and Stone2002:63, Reference Reilly, Berrin and Fields2010:52) or, at least, that they are probably burials (Grove Reference Grove1984:126; Joyce Reference Joyce2000a:44; cf. Gillespie Reference Gillespie, Mills and Walker2008; Grove Reference Grove2014:48; Merry de Morales Reference Merry de Morales and Grove1987:111). In re-examining the totality of the evidence, Colman (Reference Colman2010:124ff) identified 10 burials based on the presence of earspools or other jewelry placed as if on a body, and secondarily on the basis of associated cinnabar, a stone container, or a pit. Tomb A stands out for its (barely) preserved human remains, but the conventional wisdom is that it was built to house two or possibly three juveniles, children, or infants (Clark Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:136; Colman Reference Colman2010:Table 8; Diehl Reference Diehl1990:59, Reference Diehl2004:70; González Lauck Reference González Lauck, Benson and de la Fuente1996:76; Pool Reference Pool2007:164; Soustelle Reference Soustelle1979:50), possibly even young “princes” (Coe Reference Coe1968:66).

By extension, Diehl (Reference Diehl1990:60) considered the figurines recovered from Tomb A to be therefore “funerary” in purpose. Reilly (Reference Reilly and Kowalski1999:32) further suggested that all of Complex A “functioned as a mortuary complex for the interment of La Venta's elite dead.” Contra Heizer (in Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:127), Reilly interpreted the 1955 Offerings 5–7 as burials of high-status individuals predating the major tombs of Phase IV (see also Clark Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016; Clark and Colman Reference Clark and Colman2014; Colman Reference Colman2010). This would indicate a continuity of mortuary ritual that began in Phase I, with Mound A-2 clearly housing the remains of a late paramount ruler (Reilly Reference Reilly and Kowalski1999:33). Clark (Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:137), however, called attention to the great size and impressive inventory of grave goods in Tomb C in Mound A-3 as “the best candidate for a ruler.”

Following Reilly (Reference Reilly and Kowalski1999), Diehl (Reference Diehl2004:77) conjectured that Mound A-2 was a “royal burial mound surrounding the Tomb B sarcophagus, final resting place for a true Olmec king.” The walled Ceremonial Court to its immediate south thus became a “secluded retreat where La Venta's royalty gathered to commune with their deceased and deified ancestors” (Diehl Reference Diehl2004:67). In his interpretation, it was a stage setting for ancestral rituals that were essential to maintaining political power at La Venta within a dynasty of shaman-kings. Diehl (Reference Diehl2004:64) further mused that the founder of a La Venta dynasty may have been interred in the earthen pyramid (Complex C) that forms the southern boundary of Complex A.

These various scenarios demonstrate how important the royal tombs have become to interpreting ritual and power among La Venta's highest elites, providing at least “a minimal view of revered rulers of this polity” (Clark Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:138), although Clark (Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:135) cautioned that the best evidence for kings consists of their depictions on stone monuments. Furthermore, the common assessment that these structures form the resting places of a series of singular rulers–not just of possibly coeval elite individuals–implies a significant evolution of centralized political organization, possibly dynastic kings, at late La Venta, ostensibly predating that development among the Maya. That aside, the La Venta burials developed a singular importance in Olmec archaeology for a simpler reason noted by Stirling (Reference Stirling1955:23, 1975:306): human burials were lacking at other Olmec centers. Cyphers (Reference Cyphers, Traxler and Sharer2016:95–96) reported a few incidents of human remains at Early Formative San Lorenzo and its environs from contexts suggesting human sacrifice. Thus, information on primary human burials or standard funeral practices among the Olmecs outside of La Venta is otherwise still lacking.

Are the tombs really tombs?

As the feature descriptions compiled by their excavators evince, all but one of the 1940s tombs and all of the 1955 “grave-like deposits” lacked an important characteristic of burials: human remains. Not only were the putative primary interments missing, but also possible sacrificial victims or retainers in the larger tombs, such as Tomb C (noted by Clark [2016:138]). The lone exception was the fragile bundle burials of Tomb A. The general absence of human remains at La Venta became another unresolved disagreement between Stirling and Drucker. Stirling (Reference Stirling1943a; Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:638; Stirling letter to Heizer dated 7/26/1965 [RFHP-NAA]) continued to insist that the osseous material in Tombs B-E had disintegrated due to water action and the acidic tropical clays. Drucker (Reference Drucker and Oehser1975:104; Drucker and Heizer Reference Drucker and Heizer1965:56–57; Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:162), on the other hand, reiterated his equally strong opinion that none of these features was proven to be a primary burial. The only other 1940s excavator, Wedel (Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:64, 71, 73), took a middle position on the three tombs he investigated in 1943. He concluded that, due to the lack of even faint traces of bone or tooth enamel, “I am unable to state positively, therefore, that these were actually burials, although the impression that they were is a strong one” (Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:64).

Most commentators on La Venta have taken the side of Stirling, assessing the absence of bone and teeth as a taphonomic issue due to preservation conditions (e.g., Bernal Reference Bernal, Heyden and Horcasitas1969:42; Clark Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:135; Clark and Colman Reference Clark and Colman2014:17; Coe Reference Coe1968:66; Colman Reference Colman2010:117; Diehl Reference Diehl and Benson1981:78, Reference Diehl2004:70–71; Pool Reference Pool2007:64). Drucker (Drucker and Heizer Reference Drucker and Heizer1965:57), however, pointedly observed that, from his prior experiences in Gulf Coast archaeology, bone never completely disintegrated to the point of invisibility, and tooth caps are “practically indestructible.” Drucker also had recorded the erstwhile presence of disintegrated organic offerings in the Northwest Platform, which was riddled by many pits that contained no surviving artifacts (Catalog of Offerings, Box 3 Alpha [RFHP-NAA]). Stirling (letter to Heizer dated 7/26/1965 [RFHP-NAA]) nevertheless countered that his own experience excavating graves in Panama proved the opposite–that bones and even teeth could be completely absent from what were otherwise typical graves.

Drucker has subsequently been faulted for treating absent evidence as “equivalent to negative evidence” (Colman Reference Colman2010:122). Stirling's (Stirling letter to Heizer dated 7/26/1965 [RFHP-NAA]) argument was that, in humid climates, when personal adornments are found in a position as if worn by a body, it is “more reasonable” to assume that a body had been present rather than absent. This same wording was independently echoed by Pool (Reference Pool2007:177): the “most reasonable interpretation” of Tomb A, Tomb B, and the similar features with precious jade ornaments was that they were “elite tombs and burials.” Given the environmental conditions that impeded the preservation of bone, Colman (Reference Colman2010:117, 124, 127) assumed that its absence was not sufficient to negate the possibility of a burial. She thus inferred that the presence of jewelry in spatial association as if on a body was sufficient, even “compelling” evidence that a body had been present (see also Clark and Colman Reference Clark and Colman2014:17; Clark Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:135–136).

In sum, the majority opinion is that bones and teeth could not survive over millennia in humid environments and acidic soils. Nevertheless, since those original conclusions were reached, human bone has been excavated in and around Early Formative San Lorenzo (Cyphers Reference Cyphers, Traxler and Sharer2016:95–96), and excavations of habitations on the margins of La Venta revealed a plethora of animal bones (González Lauck Reference González Lauck, Benson and de la Fuente1996:80). Thus, a tropical climate per se cannot be the cause for the absence of osseous material. As some have taken pains to note, in addition to bundled human long bones, Tomb A also contained a separate cluster of juvenile deciduous tooth caps, a shark's tooth, and six stingray tails (Bernal Reference Bernal, Heyden and Horcasitas1969:42; Colman Reference Colman2010:117; Drucker Reference Drucker1952:22–26; Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:641–642; Stirling letter to Heizer dated 7/26/1965 [RFHP-NAA]). There was also the “burned human skullcap” found by Stirling and Stirling (Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:641) in Tomb A, rarely mentioned again (Table 1; e.g., Colman Reference Colman2010:117). Furthermore, throughout the red cinnabar layer of Tomb A, according to Stirling and Stirling (Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:642), there were “copious unrestorable traces of organic material”—unrestorable, but still evident. Given that the fill of Tomb A was the same red clay that surrounded the putative corpses of Tombs B–E, it is difficult to justify some preservation of organic remains, including teeth, in Tomb A and not in the other presumed graves.

Some may suggest that the controversy cannot be resolved without experimental tests on the anthropogenic matrices in Complex A, something impossible to carry out now. Yet, despite the reasonableness of the default presumption of decay, the taphonomic argument has another facet that would contradict it, one that has been generally disregarded except by the archaeologists who excavated the finds. The disintegration of corpses leaves its own traces in the archaeological record. Stirling's original assumption was that bodies were buried adorned with non-perishable items; the artifacts are the principal evidence for the very existence of human burials at La Venta. Once laid out, the bodies were covered with clay. If all that were the case, one would expect to find the ornaments out of their original positions due to decomposition processes. Drucker pointed out that strung beads would become misaligned; earspools would be askew, their pendants resting at odd angles (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:162; Drucker Reference Drucker and Oehser1975:104; Grove Reference Grove2014:48). This is what one finds when excavating intact skeletons wearing such items. For example, compare the disarray of beads and other ornaments on preserved Middle Formative elite burials, such as Burial 6 at Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas (Clark Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:Figure 5.15) and Burial 40 at Chalcatzingo, Morelos (Merry de Morales Reference Merry de Morales and Grove1987:Figure 8.4).

The soil packed around the body should have kept the objects somewhat close to their original locations, but that would mean, in terms of micro-stratigraphy, that they should be found at different vertical levels; for example, a forehead maskette higher than the earspools on a supine body. As noted in the feature descriptions above, at La Venta the earspools always lay flat on a single plane, their pendants carefully arranged, and presumably strung beads showed little sign of disarrangement, “which obviously would not have been the case had it been laid across a body” (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:164). Drucker (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:4; letter from Heizer to William Coe dated 9/11/1964 [RFHP-NAA]) made these observations in the section of the 1959 report on the offerings, which he authored. Earlier, Wedel (Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:71), who carefully mapped Tomb C (Figure 7; Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:Figure 22), observed that all of the objects lay “just above the floor slabs” on a single horizontal plane (see also Grove Reference Grove2014:48). Descriptions, drawings, and photographs of the three intact 1955 offerings with costume ornaments in the 1959 report similarly indicate that the artifacts were positioned at the same horizontal level (Offerings 5–7 [Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:Figures 41, 44, plate 38, and 45]). While there is no drawing or known photograph of all the artifacts in situ in Tombs A and B, photographs reveal the Tomb E artifacts were similarly arrayed (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:Plates 13a and 13b; Grove Reference Grove1992:Figure 12). This is compelling positive (not negative) archaeological evidence of what was absent in these features: a decaying corpse.

Do These Deposits Represent a Sequence of Individual Leaders?

The other major controversy follows from the first but has received far less attention. The majority opinion has been that Complex A contained the primary or secondary burials of elite individuals interred soon after death wearing their jade ornaments. At least some are believed to be the graves of actual ruling paramounts, secular or religious leaders who succeeded each other over a period of decades (Heizer Reference Heizer1961:53), the last royal dynasts at La Venta (Clark Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:123, 136–138). The assignment by the 1955 project of the five tombs to Phase IV, while similar but simpler features date to earlier phases, lent support to the thesis that the power of the rulers, as assessed by mortuary display, increased over time at La Venta. The logical conclusion is that the most powerful kings were entombed in sequence but in unique ways during the last construction phase of Complex A, after which La Venta was presumably abandoned. Significantly, some archaeologists draw on stratigraphic data to support this conclusion, but others disagree, creating another controversy.

Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions regarding the relative stratigraphic positioning of the Complex A layers, structures, and features, not least because the published profile drawings (Drucker Reference Drucker1952; Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959) have shortcomings and some outright errors (Colman Reference Colman2010; Gillespie Reference Gillespie, Mills and Walker2008, Reference Gillespie2011; Gillespie and Volk Reference Gillespie and Volk2014). Some misreadings have tended to reinforce the interpretation of a mortuary function for Complex A; e.g., statements that Mound A-2 was erected in order to cover Tomb A (Bernal Reference Bernal, Heyden and Horcasitas1969:38; Diehl Reference Diehl1990:59; Reilly Reference Reilly, Berrin and Fields2010:110), and that Mound A-3 was intended to cover Tomb C, despite both mounds’ initiation much earlier in Phase I (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:124).

The defining criterion of the Phase IV construction episode of Complex A is the deposition of the “red clay cap” on all the structures (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:126). It is described as a local clay, red or orange-red, free of topsoil and inclusions except for “crumbs of pottery”–in short, a prepared artificial fill (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:28). Additional distinguishing features of this phase's deposits are the first known uses of imported sandstone, limestone, and basalt in natural columnar form (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:126). In addition to its homogeneity and ubiquity, the upper surface of the red clay layer was notably eroded, indicating that the Complex A stewards had ceased their centuries-long maintenance of the ceremonial precinct, and the entire complex was naturally covered with drift sand (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:25).

The relationship of the red clay cap, which is something of a misnomer, to the tombs has been variously interpreted. A few Olmec archaeologists (Diehl Reference Diehl2004:69; Reilly Reference Reilly and Fields1994:131) considered the red clay deposit as a termination event—a deliberate, pre-abandonment covering to close off the entire area. Others have suggested that the red clay was a layer subsequently added over the earlier tombs. For example, Lowe's (Reference Lowe, Sharer and Grove1989:34, Figure 4.1a) perspective drawing of Mound A-2 with Tombs A and B positioned as free-standing structures on top is captioned as “prior to placement of the final red clay cap on Complex A.” Clark (Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:136) similarly described Tombs A and B as placed atop Mound A-2, after which “another construction layer was added to the mound to cover both tombs.” Nevertheless, stratigraphic evidence reveals that the tombs, stone sculptures, basalt columns, and other Phase IV elements were embedded in the red clay, which facilitated their erection (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:25). As Coe and Stuckenrath (Reference Coe and Stuckenrath1964:3) remarked, Phase IV was a “multi-faceted climax” of indeterminate length.

Not only do the five tombs of Complex A date to the same construction phase, the three on Mound A-2 (A, B, and E) came together in coordinated fashion as part of a single “unit of construction” (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:27) that also included Massive Offering No. 2 below them (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:49); this point has been reiterated by Reilly (Reference Reilly and Fields1994:128, Reference Reilly and Kowalski1999) and Colman (Reference Colman2010:191–212). They cannot, therefore, be vestiges of primary burials of a series of paramount rulers who reigned and died over years or decades, even as they may have been intended to evoke or commemorate the singular existences of certain historical individuals. The next section lays out the stratigraphic information for these coordinated efforts on Mound A-2 in further detail. Although the two Mound A-3 “tombs” (C and D) were also constructed during Phase IV and enveloped in the red clay, they cannot otherwise be easily linked stratigraphically to the Mound A-2 features and so are not further considered here.

Massive Offering 2

Leaving aside the complex earlier construction history of Mound A-2 (Phases I-III; Figure 11-1), Phase IV was initiated by digging a large (15.08 × 6.9 m, N-S and E-W, respectively), steep-sided, rectangular pit oriented north-south on the centerline, through the heart of the platform, some 6.32 m deep extending below the anthropogenic layers into the clay subsoil (Figure 11-2 and Supplementary Figure 4). It is possible that the material removed from this pit was used to make a ramp on the north side of the mound for ease of access. The pit was intended, like the four other known massive offerings, to hold rows of prepared serpentine blocks on its bottom surface. Designated Massive Offering 2 (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:128–129), in this case only a single layer of blocks was laid, forming a kind of paved bottom to the pit. These blocks were uniquely positioned atop a ca. 15.2 centimeters (6 in) diminishing to 6.3 cm (2.5 in) fill layer of bright, red, sandy clay into which, at the very least, seven jade beads had been placed (Figure 11-3; Heizer et al. Reference Heizer, Drucker and Graham1968b:8). Heizer surmised from the uneroded steep sides of the pit, which were apparently not shored up, and the absence of signs of erosion in the fill that the excavation and filling of this feature occurred rapidly, during a single dry season (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:42, 129).

Once laid, the serpentine blocks were covered with clay fill, and then a deeper layer of brown sandy fill in which several discrete lenses of “sandy loading layers” were added (Figure 11-4). All these layers and lenses sloped down from south to north, suggesting that the filling operation proceeded from the south end. At a depth of 3.96 m (13 ft) below the Massive Offering 2 pit opening, Offerings 9 and 11 were deposited in shallow pits 1.37 m (4 ft 6 in) west and east, respectively, of the north-south centerline (their vertical position is indicated in Figure 11-4). These are the first known caches put into the pit fill and were discovered in 1955 (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:176–184). They constituted twinned arrangements of one iron-ore mirror with nine jade and serpentine celts in association with red and purple cinnabar and hundreds of jade beads; neither offering has been deemed a potential burial. These caches were part of a change in the filling process; above them, a different matrix was used to fill the pit. The 1942 excavations reached this latter matrix, uncovering a cruciform arrangement of 37 jade celts (Offering 1942-C) on the centerline at a depth of 2.38 m (7 ft 10 in; Drucker Reference Drucker1952:27, Figure 10b). Perhaps when or after this cache was deposited, we suggest that workers stood on the fill to put a thin layer of yellowish, sandy-clay “plaster” on the surface of the upper portion of the pit wall, at least on its southern side (not discovered until 1967). On this prepared surface were bands of paint in alternating colored stripes of purplish-red and black or deep brownish-black (Figure 12-5; Heizer et al. Reference Heizer, Drucker and Graham1968b:10–11, Figure 8). Additional fill with discrete lenses was then added, again mapped as sloping down from south to north. A rough unworked sandstone block, similar in material to the Tomb B coffer, was encountered in 1955 near the horizontal and vertical midpoint of the pit (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:49).

Importantly, the pit fill, having reached the Phase III summit of Mound A-2 on the south edge, was topped by a distinctive thin, gray-tan, sandy clay layer, also sloping down to the north at the same general angle (Figure 12-6; stratum d-2 in Drucker et al. [Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:Figure 12]). This layer forms a discontinuity between the fill of the pit and the subsequent red clay matrix that enveloped the tombs. It was apparently continuous across the top of the fill and may have been disturbed by the placement of Monuments 6 and 7 (Tombs B and A; Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:43, 49). Virtually all the anthropogenic building fill above stratum d-2 is the red clay that covered Complex A in Phase IV.

Offering 1943-F

Projecting stratum d-2 at its extant sloping angle reveals that it intersects with the placement of Offering 1943-F, the “Tomb E” assemblage of artifacts with cinnabar. We therefore interpret the placing of this cache, which is off the centerline, as an action to ritually terminate the filling and capping of the Massive Offering pit (Figure 12-6 and Supplementary Figure 5). It was the fourth known cache deposited near the center of the mound, preceded by Offerings 9 and 11 and 1942-C, but it is located farther north, above the rough sandstone block 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in) below, near the midpoint of the Massive Offering pit (Figure 13). The 1943-F artifacts were then covered with the red clay fill (Figure 12-7). While some have suggested that Offering 1943-F was placed in a pit dug down through the red clay after Tomb B was positioned, and only then covered with horizontal basalt columns (Clark Reference Clark, Traxler and Sharer2016:136–137; Colman Reference Colman2010:191, Figure 117), there is no evidence of a pit intruding into that matrix or of a different fill material. Furthermore, excavating such a large opening immediately adjacent to Tomb B would likely have caused the heavy sandstone box to subside. As described below, we suggest the 11 basalt columns that lie above Offering 1943-F were positioned later for Tomb A. While the cache was not forgotten, it may be only unintentionally associated with basalt columns as a result of the entirety of activities during this construction phase, and could justifiably be linked with Tomb B and/or Tomb A.

Tomb B

Assuming the workers brought materials up from the north side of the mound, they would most efficiently have placed Tomb B first, rather than Tomb A, as it would have been difficult to move the large, heavy sandstone box and lid around that structure on the narrow summit of the mound. Tomb B was positioned on a thick layer of the red clay fill, presumably after its relief design was carved into three sides, so that clay had to have been brought up first (Figure 12-8 and Supplementary Figure 6). This box lies directly atop the midpoint of the Massive Offering, though not at the midpoint of Mound A-2. Thus, among the Mound A-2 tombs it is believed to be most directly associated with that feature (Supplementary Figure 7; Reilly Reference Reilly and Fields1994:128).

The base of Tomb B is approximately 0.59 meters (1 ft 11.5 in) higher than the projected base of Tomb A's basalt column walls, as shown in the early profile drawing (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:Figure 9). In the later published profile drawing (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:Figure 12), the base of Tomb B was erroneously drawn as sitting atop the d-2 stratum, about level with the bottom of Tomb A. Photographs taken in 1942 show that the tops, not the bottoms, of both structures are approximately aligned inches below the ground surface (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:Plate 1; Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:636). At some point after the sandstone box was in place, the artifacts were laid within it and red clay and sand fill added up to the top (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:641). Its heavy lid may not have been put in place until more red clay was mounded up on either side of the box, to avoid having to lift it very far off the surface (Figure 12-9 and Supplementary Figure 8). Tomb B was most likely completed and capped before serious work began at Tomb A.

Tomb A

Tomb A, which is far larger and more imposing, may not have been part of an original design plan that focused on Tomb B, and seems to have involved repurposing resources originally designated for elsewhere in Complex A. According to Wedel (Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:65, 78), the 11 basalt columns above Offering 1943-F together with the approximately 38 full-length columns of Tomb A would account for the gaps in the Phase IV basalt columns positioned along the inner east wall of the Ceremonial Court. That wall was never completed (cf. Clark [2016:142], who stated that the columns were “taken from a palisade built several centuries earlier”; all of the columns date to construction Phase IV). The columns of both Tombs E and A were “of the same sort, but the former were smaller in diameter and less regular in cross-section than the latter” (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:27). When encountered in 1942, the columns lying south of Tomb A were all oriented north-south, forming an irregular, east-west grouping that was deeper in the middle than along the edges, with some columns “considerably tilted” (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:27). At that time, they were considered “building material left over after the construction of nearby Tomb A” (Wedel Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:63).

Although this idea was dismissed with the excavation in 1943 of the cache of artifacts below the supine basalt columns and their collective designation as Tomb E, we suggest that the original supposition was more likely correct. The Tomb E columns were among those brought up to the surface of Mound A-2 after Tomb B was positioned, as building material for what would become Tomb A. They may have been rejected for being somewhat inferior in size and shape to the other Tomb A columns, which were carefully selected. The 11 remaining were not subsequently removed, which would have required maneuvering them around Tomb A as it was being erected. Removal may not have been considered necessary given that they were destined to be quickly covered with red clay.

We thus surmise that, after Tomb B was in place and likely after red clay had been put within and around it, workers began bringing up the basalt columns to make Tomb A, stacking many of them destined for that purpose on the sloping red clay fill just north of Tomb B (Figure 14-10 and Supplementary Figure 9). Importantly, Drucker and Heizer (Reference Drucker and Heizer1956; see also Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:Plate 9a) discussed how the basalt columns may have been moved based on their own excavation experience. Rather than roll them on the ground, the 1955 La Venta workers utilized the “time-honored system of slinging the weight from poles and getting everybody and his brother to shoulder them” (Drucker and Heizer Reference Drucker and Heizer1956:375, 369). By this means, a single basalt column was suspended with ropes tied to several poles along its length, the poles being perpendicular to the orientation of the column. Placing the poles on their shoulders and heaving upwards, several people could lift and carry the column. In such a manner, the columns could have been individually walked up the north side of Mound A, their orientations running north-south parallel to the mound. Dropped in place in a stack just north of Tomb B, their collective weight may have contributed to their sagging into the fill of Massive Offering 2.

What happened next to raise most of those columns to create the tomb's back (south) and east and west side walls is judged from observations made by Drucker in 1942 and the engineering techniques used elsewhere in Complex A. As noted previously, in Phase IV, upright basalt columns were placed on the interior of a Phase II adobe brick wall encircling much of the Ceremonial Court and also atop the Phase II, adobe-brick, Southeast and Southwest Platforms that form its southern border. In all those cases, trenches were dug into the adobe brick and partially filled with the Phase IV red clay to prop up the columns and hold them in place (profile drawings in Drucker et al. [Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:Figures 6, 26, 27]).

Atop Mound A-2, there should also have been trenches dug in which to place the columns, which could not stand on their own. Trenches were excavated into the red clay that had been brought up with Tomb B, extending down approximately to the d-2 stratum that topped the Massive Offering fill and north beyond that fill; Tomb A straddles the northern edge of the Massive Offering pit (Figure 14-10 and Supplementary Figure 9). Leaving the area in the center unexcavated contributed to the 30.48 cm (1 ft) clay “platform” that elevated the Tomb A artifacts (Figure 14-11 and Supplementary Figure 10). The basalt columns were positioned presumably from south to north, five to form the back wall and nine each on the east and west sides. Some were positioned deeper than others so that their tops were level. As they were put in place, the red clay removed from the trenches, along with additional red clay brought up for this purpose, was mounded on the east and west exterior walls especially, as “construction aids” to keep the columns from toppling (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:26). The irregular five-sided columns were positioned with care so that their widest sides were on the interior, forming a relatively smooth, gapless surface compared to the exterior façade (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:23; Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:639).

With the south, east, and west walls held in place by the red clay, work could proceed inside. Atop the interior raised area were placed approximately eight pieces of flattish limestone of irregular size and shape (Figure 14-12, refer back to Figure 4). As noted above, the published plan view of these flagstones (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:Figure 10) does not quite match their appearance in the photographs (Drucker Reference Drucker1952:Plate 1; Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:636). According to Stirling (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:636), the stones were covered with a thin layer of blue clay that was topped by an irregular layer of red cinnabar about 15 centimeters (6 inches) thick. Drucker (Reference Drucker1952:23) remembered it differently: an irregular layer of “olive-brown clay or swamp muck” was topped by two bundle burials coated in red cinnabar paint. One unpublished National Geographic Society photograph by Richard Stewart (#25674-TR) shows several of the Offering 1942-A objects, apparently in situ, atop the bed of clay with part of the limestones exposed below. They consist of a jade seated figure, broken but complete, lying face up (Figurine #2; Drucker Reference Drucker1952:Plates 46 and 47) and, about 15 centimeters away, a standing blue jade figurine, face up (Figurine #3; Drucker Reference Drucker1952:Plates 47 and 48). Near the feet of the standing figurine were three D-shaped pieces of jade in a row and a tubular bead (possibly Drucker Reference Drucker1952:Plate 57A, a). These last four objects were not mentioned by Stirling and Stirling (Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:640) as found with the figurines. The two figurines and three D-shaped pieces were assigned to Drucker's Burial Bundle I near the north edge of the platform, which does conform with Stirling's description of where they were encountered.

With the artifacts and other materials, including organics, in position, the interior of the tomb was filled with red clay “packed…to the roof” (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942:640). More red clay was brought to the summit of the platform mound to further support the exterior walls. When it reached a level approximately halfway up the back (south) wall of Tomb A, a selection of jade objects was “scattered” in the fill adjacent to that chamber within a ca. two meter area: two small earspools, a few beads, and an incomplete serpentine figurine (Figure 14-13 and Supplementary Figure 11; Drucker Reference Drucker1952:27). Drucker (Reference Drucker1952:28) commented that there was no indication of purposeful placement of these objects, and there is no published photograph or drawing of them in situ. Catalogued as Offering 1942-D, this scattering is the last known formal deposit of precious objects as part of the construction unit that began with Massive Offering 2 and the jade beads placed below its serpentine blocks. Offering 1942-D was positioned above the northern portions of the Tomb E basalt columns, but not over the 1943-F cache covered by those columns, which is further south. Conceivably a relationship was made by the stewards in charge of the construction among all these caches and stone constructions in some holistic manner.

Still more red clay was brought in to cover Offering 1942-D between Tombs A and B, up to the top of Tomb A's walls (Figure 14-14 and Supplementary Figure 12). This was necessary to position the horizontal roof columns, which were most likely brought up when needed and laid south to north (Figure 15-15 and Supplementary Figure 13). Once the tomb chamber was filled and the roof columns were laid in place, then the north side, with its graduated columns on the sides and slanted long columns laid against the roof, was finished (Figure 15-16 and Supplementary Figure 14). This “doorway” may not have required a deep trench to hold the columns in place. These columns as well were covered with a thin layer of red clay, part of a general capping operation that continued covering the entire mound (Figure 15-17 and Supplementary Figure 15).

A subsequent action worthy of mention as part of this large operation is the erection of Monument 13 on the centerline at the south foot of Phase IV Mound A-2, uncovered by Stirling and Wedel in 1943 (Supplementary Figure 16). This basalt monument, approximately 80 centimeters tall, is described as a short block or columnar drum (but unlike the columnar basalts of Tomb A) forming a squat, upright post with a smoothed, upper, near-circular surface upon which there is a low-relief carving (Figure 16 and Supplementary Figure 17; Drucker Reference Drucker1952:180–182; de la Fuente Reference de la Fuente1973: 262). The relatively naturalistic profile rendering of a striding, human figure juxtaposed with what looks like a short, vertical column of simple hieroglyphic signs has raised doubt in the minds of some archaeologists and art historians that it originated in the late Middle Formative, still within the Olmec era (Lacadena García-Gallo Reference Lacadena García-Gallo, Uriarte and González Lauck2008:612–614). To them it is stylistically too late, more epi-Olmec (after 400 b.c.) than Olmec (e.g., Berrin and Fields Reference Berrin and Fields2010:242; de la Fuente Reference de la Fuente1973:262–264; Taube Reference Taube2004:45; cf. Soustelle Reference Soustelle1979:52). Wedel (Reference Wedel and Drucker1952:63), however, had no doubt that it was directly associated with Mound A-2. Its irregular broken base was made to fit the slope of the mound, so that the top would be flat. Notably, Monument 13 sits on the red clay but was not covered with this matrix like the rest of Complex A.

Figure 16.

Three-dimensional reconstruction of Monument 13 in situ at the southern foot of Mound A-2, above the red clay cap, showing the relief design on the top surface.

Monument 13 is not an anomaly in its setting. As noted above, the central point of the southern base of Mound A-2 had seen a series of posts or even a line of posts, against which thin layers of colored sandy clays had continually been deposited (Drucker et al. Reference Drucker, Heizer and Squier1959:40–41, Figure 10). Monument 13 was the last of these, likely the largest. On its upper surface, the man walks from south to north (orientation based on in situ National Geographic Society photographs by Richard Stewart in 1943, #33578-TR, 33579-TR). “Facing north” with “head” to the south is how Stirling (Stirling and Stirling Reference Stirling and Stirling1942: 638) described the position of the putative person laid in Tomb B. Apparently, this directional orientation was an axiomatic pattern for Mound A-2 and all of Complex A. Mound A-2 is the tallest structure, the focus of vision and experience among the participants in the rituals conducted within a sacred precinct (the walled Ceremonial Court) that was most likely entered from the south (Gillespie and Volk Reference Gillespie and Volk2014).