With their initial hearth, Olmèques radiated towards the interior of the grounds to establish profitable commercial exchanges. They influenced deeply the posterior ages of the Central America.  

By the contribution of essential cultural features, such as the worships of the jaguar and the god of the rain, still into force at the XV E century, the orientation of constructions according to the cardinal points, the invention of a hieroglyphic writing, arithmetic and a calendar, the creation of a sculpture and a statuary carried to an high degree of improvement, the olmèque culture is placed indeed at the origin of the American field crops, to which it gave a remarkable impulse, while giving access to them the traditional stage. The olmèque culture, that they are its chronology or its essential characteristics, poses a series of enigmas unsolved to date.  
 
Structure and sculptor

One also gives to olmèque civilization the name of “culture of Venta”, of the name of one of the principal archeological sites - whose pyramid celebrates it is probably one of the oldest examples of the méso-American surface -, with those of San Lorenzo, Cerro of mow Mesas and Tres Zapotes. These sites comprise brick buildings covered with stone, technique invented by Olmèques because of the scarcity of the stone, the tombs, the furnace bridges decorated with low-reliefs where the topic of the jaguar holding in its mouth is repeated a man, but especially a monumental statuary in the shape of steles from one to five meters height, masks, and especially spectacular representations of human heads, basalt monoliths which can reach twenty tons, and undoubtedly transported by raft of an area located at a hundred kilometers; they appear a deformed skull, intentionally widened to the top, of the oblique eyes, an impressed nose, large lips with the falling corners which point out the mouth of cat-like; one indeed finds many representations mythological with the mid--human, mid--cat-like features.  

The representations of new-born babies and children crying, obese, with the puffed up eyes, are frequent, undoubtedly in relation to the worship of the rain, as well as deformed, dwarf, uneven beings. The physical type of Olmèques is unknown for us because, because of the strong rainfall of the areas where them civilization developed, no skeleton remained. Olmèques were also illustrated in the face of the hard stones: jade, quartz, the serpentine one, obsidian and the amethyst, in which they carved figurines similar to the enormous heads; jewels, ceremonial axes, objects which constitute sometimes buried offerings.  
 
A hieroglyphic writing

The ceremonial centers make their appearance at the time olmèque; the monuments there are built on both sides of a central alley, and are directed according to the cardinal points, thus obeying religious requirements. Initially, they were the center of the life of the peasants olmèques divided in nearby villages; then, they should have been used only at the time of the ceremonies. One suspects a Community social organization structured as clans totemic, dependant on the worship of the jaguar; the steles attest the use of a hieroglyphic writing, a numeration and a calendar. The presence of unknown techniques hitherto, of new products coming sometimes from distant areas implies a social dimension and economic higher than that of the former cultures, and in particular of the exchanges using the waterways and maritime. These commercial exchanges suppose a sufficient military power ensuring protection at the time of contacts with other people. The products of remote origin could also come from tributes of war imposed by Olmèques.

Decline and survival

The olmèque culture declined at the end of the Preclassical means (towards 600) but survived in wandering groups, after a migration towards the high plateaus of the Central America, to the XII E century a. J. - C.; she exerted very strong influences on the eighty cultures of Preclassical of the Mexican high plateau (Tlatilco), on the coast of the Pacific (Izapa) to El Salvador, in the area of Oaxaca (Zapotèque) and on the Maya culture in formation (Chiapas and Guatemala) like on the cultures of the area of Vera Cruz.