VFTB 072: David Hatcher Childress — The Mystery of the Olmecs

ONE OF the most intriguing mysteries of ancient times comes from relatively close to home: the Olmecs of central America. Author David Hatcher Childress proposes some out-of-the-box ideas in The Mystery of the Olmecs regarding their origins and the extent of their cultural influences.The Olmecs were not acknowledged to have existed until an international archaeological meeting in Mexico City in 1942. Now they are slowly being recognized as the mother culture of Mesoamerica having developed metallurgy, writing, and the calendar long before the Maya.In this archive interview from 2007, Childress suggests that the statuary left behind by these enigmatic people seem to indicate that they came from Africa, Asia and Europe. Was the narrow isthmus of southern Mexico an important part of a trade route that spanned both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans?