Olmec heartland Olmec Metropolitan Zone. The major heartland sites are: Smaller sites include: Important heartland finds not associated with any archaeological site include: Olmec heartland The Olmec heartland is the southern portion of Mexico's Gulf Coast region between the Tuxtla mountains and the Olmec archaeological site of La Venta, extending roughly 80 km (50 mi) inland from the Gulf of Mexico coastline at its deepest. It is today, as it was during the height of the Olmec civilization, a tropical lowland forest environment, crossed by meandering rivers. Most researchers consider the Olmec heartland to be the home of the Olmec culture which
Mayan languages mean "on (top of) the mountain". Thus in the Classical Quiché of the "Popol Vuh" we read "u-wach ulew" "on the earth" (literally "its face the earth"). Mayan languages are ergative in their alignment. This means that the subject of an intransitive verb is treated similarly to the object of a transitive verb, but differently from the subject of a transitive verb. Mayan languages have two sets of affixes that are attached to a verb to indicate the person of its arguments. One set (often referred to in Mayan grammars as set B) indicates the person of subjects of intransitive