Olmec heartland 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 became widespread over Mesoamerica from 1400 BCE until roughly 400 BCE. The area is also referred to as Olman or the
Mayan languages or, in K'iche' Maya, "Nab'ee Maya' Tzij" ("the old Maya Language"). The Proto-Mayan language is believed to have been spoken in the Cuchumatanes highlands of central Guatemala in an area corresponding roughly to where Q'anjobalan is spoken today. The earliest proposal was that of which identified the Chiapas-Guatemalan highlands as the likely "cradle" of Mayan languages was published by the German antiquarian and scholar Karl Sapper. Terrence Kaufman and John Justeson have reconstructed more than 3000 lexical items for the proto-Mayan language. According to the prevailing classification scheme by Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman, the first division occurred around 2200