Continuity Hypothesis
Marshall Saville first suggested, in 1929, that Olmec deities were forerunners of later Mesoamerican gods, linking were-jaguar votive axes with the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca. This proposal was amplified by Miguel Covarrubias in his 1957 work Indian Art of Mexico and Central America where he famously drew a family tree showing 19 later Mesoamerican rain deities as descendents of a "jaguar masked" deity portrayed on a votive axe. The Continuity Hypothesis has since been generally accepted by scholars, although the extent of Olmec influence on later cultures is still debated.
Read more about this topic: Olmec Religion
Famous quotes containing the words continuity and/or hypothesis:
“The dialectic between change and continuity is a painful but deeply instructive one, in personal life as in the life of a people. To “see the light” too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The wheels and springs of man are all set to the hypothesis of the permanence of nature. We are not built like a ship to be tossed, but like a house to stand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)