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Temples, Turtles and Fat Boys by Dan Nelson

On the origins of the Mesoamerican "Mother Culture"

SCHOLARSHIP is sometimes as dependent on luck in the field as on hours of

research in a library, and scholarly inquiry sometimes proceeds by spurts, following aseries of chance observations, much as a detective investigation might. Professor VincentMalmstrom's interest in the geographic settings of Central American archeological sites

was sparked by accident, and his unorthodox conclusions about the origins ofMesoamerican Indian cultures were fed by a fortunate series of happenstance discoveries.

"Although my original involvement in this field was what you might call accidental,"

Malmstrom explained recently, "I soon had a hunch about where the evidence wasleading. I didn't go into the field with preconceived notions, but the findings encourageda certain mind-set so that I began to have ideas of what to look for."

Malmstrom, a geographer whose specialty had been Scandinavian studies,happened to be leading a Middlebury College foreign study program in Central Americain 1973 when, on a visit to the ruins of an Indian city, he began to speculate on a possible

relationship between the astronomical alignment of some of the structures, the position of


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the sun, and the 260-day sacred calendar used by the Mayans. Scholars had long beenaware that the 260-day cycle had guided the Mayans' daily rituals and that it possessed

both religious and astronomical importance, but no one had a good theory about its

origins. Malmstrom wondered why 260 had been chosen as the number of days in theritual year and where the calendar had its beginnings.

He noticed that it would be easy for people living in the narrow band between thelatitudes of 15N and 1442N to measure the 260-day interval between transits of the sun

at its zenith simply by counting the number of days between the times an upright stake or

pillar cast no shadow. Within the geographical region just south of the 15th parallel, healso observed, the sun reaches its zenith on August 13, which happened to be the monthand day on which the Mayan calendar commenced - the day they said the world began.

Excited by these discoveries, Malmstrom, who came to Dartmouth in 1976,checked to find out if any important archeological sites were located in the area specified

by his developing theory. He was delighted to learn that the ancient city of Copn, the

Mayans' principal astronomical center, located in the highlands near the Gulf coast ofpresent-day Honduras, was situated in the right latitude. Furthermore, in light of Copn's

astronomical significance, a number of scholars had already hypothesized that the

calendar might have originated there.

Upon further study and reflection, however, Malmstrom began to have doubts.

Although the calendar had been shown to be in operation as early as 400 B.C., Copdnwas not founded until 495 A.D. In addition, many of the tropical animals for which days

on the calendar are named are not found in the highlands around Copn. Armed with this

evidence that the calendar most likely came from somewhere else, Malmstrom looked foranother, older, site in the lowlands and found that the only place meeting his geographicaland historical criteria was the large pre-Columbian ceremonial center of Izapa, on the

Pacific coastal plain of southern Mexico, just north of the Guatemalan border.

Professionals in the field, whose scholarship was based on the assumption that the Indiancivilization originated on the Gulf coast, were annoyed, Malmstrom said during aconversation this summer, with his claim that Izapa was very likely the "cradle of Olmec

civilization, the mother culture of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica."

"Because of Copn's pre-eminence in astronomy, there is a strong temptation to

ascribe the origins of the tzolkin [calendar] to this place -- a temptation which I feelimpelled to resist on historical grounds," he wrote in an article for Science magazine. "Onthe contrary, rather than arguing in favor of Copn as the birthplace of the calendar round[cycle], I would propose just the reverse, namely, that the calendar round was

responsible for the founding of Copn."

Returning to Central America almost every year since his first chance discovery

in 1973, Malmstrom has found further evidence to buttress his theory, including aconsistent alignment of archeological sites at Izapa and at dozens of other locations to a

compass bearing of 285 degrees, the precise spot on the horizon where the sun sets on


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August 13, the mythological day of creation. The sites are also in alignment withprominent mountains and

with the rising or setting sun at the summer or winter solstice. "Thus, it waspossible for a priest standing atop the main pyramid at Izapa not only to calibrateaccurately the length of the sacred 260-day almanac," Malmstrom explained in a recent

paper, "but also, by counting the number of days which elapsed between consecutivesunrises over the highest mountain in Central America, the true length of the tropical year

as well." He even employed a computer to run time backward in both the sacred and

secular calendars and found that the secular 365-day calendar most likely started June 21,1323 B.C., and that the sacred calendar goes back to August 13, 1358 B.C., dates inaccord with other archeological evidence.

In an article about the development of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican calendarsystems, published in 1978 in the Journal for the History of Astronomy, Malmstromproposed the following chronology: First, the sacred 260-day calendar, based on thetransit


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of the vertical sun, originated at Izapa in 1358 B.C. A short time later, during the period

1323-1320 B.C., a 365-day calendar based on the number of days between consecutivesunrises over Central America's highest mountain, Tajumulco, came into use. Third,calibration of the true length of the solar year, accomplished by observing intervals

between consecutive sunrises over mountains, spread with the use of the calendarthroughout Central America and helped determine where ceremonial centers were to be

built.

Malmstrom has another kind of evidence, also discovered by accident, for Izapa'scultural primacy: magnetic artifacts. (The trouble with finding magnets, according toMalmstrom, is that they pose as many questions as they answer.) In 1975, while

Malmstrom was investigating the alignments of structures at Izapa, a student inquiredabout the possible significance of the orientation of a series of sculptures. A compass wasused to take bearings from the figures, and Malmstrom was astounded to find that a

carving depicting a turtle's head, which could date back as far as 1500 B.C., possessed astrong magnetic field, concentrated in its snout. This chance discovery was particularly

surprising because the Chinese had been assumed to be the discoverers of magnetism --


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the first evidence of their knowledge dates from about the time of Christ -- and becauseonly one small crudely made ancient magnet had previously been found in Central

America. Malmstrom had stumbled upon the world's earliest known magnetic artifact in a

totally unexpected location. No magnetic properties were found in other sculptures at thesite, although additional carvings of turtles were present. Malmstrom suggests that the

sea-faring Izapans might have associated the turtle's uncanny navigational ability withmagnetism.

Most recently, while on a research trip to Guatemala last winter, Malmstrom and

Paul Dunn '81 discovered the magnetic properties of a whole series of sculptures -- again

by accident. The sculptures, representations of human figures and heads carved on five-to ten-ton basaltic boulders, six or seven feet in diameter, had been unearthed in the late1940s at a site called Monte Alto and put on display in the town of La Democracia.

Malmstrom, Dunn, and a writer for Sports Illustrated were visiting the town's museumwhen the reporter asked if the sculptures, called "fat boys," were magnetic. Malmstrom

was sure they weren't - the, Indians' association of magnetism with turtles seemedreasonable, but it seemed unlikely they would attribute its qualities to humans.

Upon checking, however, the sculptures were found to be of even more interestthan the turtles. They were older (dating from about 2000 B.C.), there were seven of

them, and the patterns of their magnetic fields were strikingly repetitive -- too similar to


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be merely coincidental. The four heads have north magnetic poles located in their righttemples and south poles below their right ears. Two of the three bodies have both north

and south magnetic poles located near their navels within ten centimeters of each other.

The north pole of the third body is located in the back of its neck, but the location of thesouth pole, which might be in the sculpture's buried base, couldn't be determined. At

another location, a carving showing two seated men has the north pole at the navels ofboth and the south pole between the figures.

Malmstrom has no firm theories about how the Olmecs discovered the magnetic

properties of basalt. Olmec civilization used no iron, and there is no real evidence theyhad other magnets, lodestones, or compasses to determine magnetism. "One can onlyassume they must have had a magnet of some sort," Malmstrom says. In a recent report,

"Pre-Columbian Magnetic Sculptures in Western Guatemala," Malmstrom and Dunn

confess that "the authors are at a loss to explain either the patterns of occurrence in theheads and bodies of the 'fat boy' sculptures or any possible significance they might have

had." They do, however, add weight to theories about the importance of Izapa and the

Pacific coast origins of Olmec civilization.

One of the more intriguing possibilities suggested by Malmstrom's research is that

the Olmecs might have borrowed some of their knowledge from another culture. Thequestion is, which one? The most likely neighbors resided across the Pacific. Malmstromhas pointed out that other researchers have noticed "striking evidence of similarities

between the Olmecs and the Shang-dynasty Chinese." For example, both cultures made apractice of placing a jade pebble in the mouth of the dead before burial, and both

employed similar styles of scrollwork on art objects. Malmstrom concluded a recent

paper by stating, "In any event, it would appear that Izapa served as a major center ofcultural innovation in Mesoamerica, whether as a trans-Pacific bridgehead or as a hearthin its own right." Possible sources of influence on the Olmecs, and the diffusion patterns

of Olmec culture, are some of the topics Malmstrom will be investigating during his next

visits to Central America. He is about to finish a book summarizing and explaining hisresearch to date.

Responding to the question of why a geographer is so interested in archeologyand anthropology, Malmstrom, who paired a college major in geography with minors in

geology and anthropology, said he saw the study of geography as "a bridge between the

physical and social sciences." He said he felt challenged, particularly after the skepticismwith which his original report on the calendar was received by scholars, to continue andfurther substantiate his findings. "I'm not a 'digger,' " he pointed out. "I'm not interested inlooking at bits of broken pottery. I'm looking at the big picture of a culture and its

diffusion. That's what a geographer does."

(This paper by Dan Nelson appeared in theDartmouth Alumni Magazine,

September 1979, Vol. 72, Number 1, pp. 36-38.)

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