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“the key”: Coe 1968:26.

Kirkby’s estimate: Kirkby 1973.

Maize iconography: Fields 1994.

Maize in Europe: Crosby 2003b:180–81; Warman 2003: 97–111.

Pellagra in Europe, Goethe: Roe 1973; McCollum 1957:302; Goethe 1962:33–34; Warman 2003:132–50.

Maize and slavery: Author’s interviews, Crosby; Crosby 2003b:186–88; 1994:24; Warman 2003:60–65.

Oaxaca data: Anon. ed. 1998b:532–68. The data are from 1991, the most recent year for which census results are available.

Estimated productivity of Green Revolution maize in Oaxaca: Author’s interviews, Aragon Cuevas, James Boyce. The estimate is roughly confirmed by the calculations of Ackerman et al. (2002:36) that “a 1 percent increase in use of improved varieties was typically associated with an increase in yield of 0.037 tons/ha” and hence a 100 percent switchover is a jump of 3.7 tons/ha.

Economic problems of landrace maize in Oaxaca: Author’s interviews, Aragón Cuevas, Bellon, Boyce, Hallberg, Ramírez Leyva, Wilkes.

7 / Writing, Wheels, and Bucket Brigades

Stirling’s find of dated stela: Stirling 1939 (“knees,” “hurried,” 213), 1940a; Coe 1976b. Stirling’s position was held previously by William Henry Holmes, scourge of amateur “relic hunters.” In his National Geographic article, Stirling says the first giant head was discovered in 1858; others put the find at 1862 (Bernal 1969:29). Following an earlier, mistaken understanding of the Mesoamerican calendar, Stirling believed that the stela was earlier than now thought; I use the modern date. Because carbon-dating had not yet been invented, he had the dates of Maya emergence wrong, too. Still, he was right to be puzzled by the Olmec.

Second Veracruz trip, first Olmec article: Stirling 1940b (“designed,” “‘The ticks,’” 312; “basic civilization,” 333; “mysterious,” 334).

The Olmec: Among the few general book-length overviews are Coe 1996 (especially valuable for its illustrations of Olmec art); Pina Chan 1989; and Bernal 1969 (1968), the last still surprisingly useful despite its age. All espouse the “mother culture” view, which has come under increasing fire.

“enigmatic people”: Baird and Bairstow 2004:727. Similar language can be found in the Eyewitness Travel Guide: Mexico (New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2003), 254. These characterizations are common in the popular press (e.g., Stuart 1993a [“the Olmec stand for many as a kind of ‘mother culture’ to all the civilizations that came after, including the Maya and the Aztec,” 92]; Lemonick 1996 [“More than 1,500 years before the Maya…, the mysterious Olmec people were building the first great culture of Mesoamerica,” 56]).

Olmec emerge abruptly: Some researchers have hypothesized that Olmec society was stimulated into existence by a migration from the Pacific coast, but recent ceramics research in Veracruz casts doubt on this idea (Arnold 2003).

“quantum change”: Meggers 1975:17.

“There is now little doubt”: Coe 1994:62.

Bad name: Bernal 1969:11–12. Actually, the name is even worse than I indicated. “Olmec” doesn’t refer to a people, but to the political phenomenon that began and ended with their cities. The people in those cities may still be around, but called something else.

Mixe-Zoquean: Campbell and Kaufman 1976.

Olmec rubber: Hosler, Burkett, and Tarkanian 1999; Rodríguez and Ortiz 1994.

1800 B.C.: Rust and Sharer 1988.

San Lorenzo: Coe and Diehl 1980; Cyphers ed. 1997.

Olmec theology: Reilly 1994.

Thrones changed into sculptures: Porter 1989.

Africa-Olmec and Shang-Olmec connection: For the Africa-Olmec connection, see Barton 2001; Winters 1979; Van Sertima 1976. Van Sertima’s claims are attacked in Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano, and Barbour 1997. For the Shang-Olmec connection, see Xu 1996; Meggers 1975; Ekholm 1969. I am grateful to Mike Xu for sending me a copy of his manuscript. Meggers was critiqued in Grove 1977 and responded in Meggers 1977.

Olmec sculptures of fetuses and pathological conditions: Tate and Bendersky 1999; Dávalos Hurtado