The Olmecan term is used to designate a culture that had its acme in the Middle Preclassic period (1200-400 B.C.). Characterized for a social complexity without precedents, it was able to extend its influence now on great part of the called "Mesoamerica". It was a society in which the political organization and the cosmology had reached a sophistication without parallel until then.

One of the fundamental characteristics of the Olmecan society is that it was able to transcend its native environment located in the coast of the Gulf, to conform the first cultural complex of "Meso-American" reach.

The Olmecan style is distinguished for a series of symbolic reasons and other stylistic features that mention the existence of a political organization in which the central element was the government's legitimation in its great majority, by means of its adscription to the environment of the divine entities.

The south of Veracruz and the western limit of Tabasco, are located great quantity of Olmecan vestiges that has been considered the nuclear area of that culture. Their natural diversity would have been a decisive factor in the development of the complex Olmecan society. In this culture we can find the well-known Olmecan sculptures for whose elaboration it was necessary to transport the stone from sources so far from the big centers as Cintepec. An exclusive element of this region is the colossal heads, located in its majority in the three capitals that successively dominated area: San Lorenzo, La Venta and Tres Zapotes.