Olmec, indigenous people of Mesoamerica, who established one of the region’s first major civilizations. They lived along the central coast of the Gulf of Mexico, just west of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the swampy jungle river basins of the present-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. Over time, they extended their influence through the highlands of Mexico; the Valley of Mexico; Oaxaca; and westwards to Guerrero. The Olmec flourished between about 1500 and 600 bc. San Lorenzo, their oldest known center, was destroyed around 900 bc. It was replaced by La Venta, a city built in an axial pattern that influenced urban development in Central America for centuries. A mounded earthen pyramid about 30 m (about 100 ft) high, among the earliest in Mesoamerica, was the center of a complex of temples and plazas.

The Olmec were among the first Mesoamerican peoples to use stone in sculpture and architecture, even though it had to be quarried in distant mountains. Their colossal stone heads of males, about 2.7 m (about 9 ft) high, can be seen today, along with other Olmec artifacts, in the Mexican city of Villahermosa. The Olmec are thought to have developed the earliest known writing system in the Americas, based on a stone tablet with carved symbols discovered in Veracruz state. Scholars believe the tablet dates to about 900 bc, although the symbols appear to be unrelated to later Mesoamerican scripts. The Olmec civilization, however, established patterns of culture that influenced its successors for centuries to come.