Tres Zapotes

Tres Zapotes is a Mesoamerican archaeological site located in the south-central Gulf Lowlands of Mexico in the Papaloapan River plain. Tres Zapotes is sometimes referred to as the third major Olmec capital (after San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán and La Venta), but the Olmec phase is only a portion of the site's history, which continued through the Epi-Olmec and Classic Veracruz cultural periods.

The 2000-year existence of Tres Zapotes as a cultural center is unusual, if not unique, in Mesoamerica.

The site is located near the present-day village of Tres Zapotes, west of Santiago Tuxtla, Veracruz at the western edge of the Los Tuxtlas Mountains on the banks of the Rio Hueyapan (a small stream). The area is a transition point between the Los Tuxtlas Mountains and the Papaloapan River delta and allowed the inhabitants to take advantage of the forested uplands as well as the swamps and streams of the flatlands. Scarcely 10 km (6 mi) to the east stands Cerro el Vigía, an extinct volcano and important source of basalt and other volcanic stone, sandstone, and clay. The nearby small site of Rancho la Cobata, on the northern flank of Cerro El Vigía, may have functioned as a monument workshop – most of the basalt stonework at Tres Zapotes was crafted from the colossal, "spheroid", smooth-faced boulders found even today at the summit of Cerro El Vigía. Some of these boulders are more than 3 meters in diameter.

Founded some time in the centuries before 1000 BCE, Tres Zapotes emerged as a regional center early in the Middle Formative period, perhaps 900 - 800 BCE, roughly coinciding with the decline of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan. The earliest public architecture yet detected has been dated to the end of the Middle Formative, perhaps 500 BCE.

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