Philip Drucker discusses the presence of altars among the Olmecs at La Venta and San Lorenzo.
Philip Drucker, “On the Nature of Olmec Policy,” in The Olmec and Their Neighbors: Essays in Memory of Matthew W. Stirling, ed. Elizabeth P. Benson (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, 1981), 45
La Venta Altar 3 has on one side two figures, 3:2 and 3:3, shown seated and engaged in conversation. Unequal status is shown by the fact that 3.2 sits on a bench, while 3:3, inferior in status, sits on the floor. No diagnostic details indicative of differing regional origins can e made out, however.
The “altars” portraying the captive theme, La Venta Alar 4 and San Lorenzo Monument 14, show a principal figure holding a line to which a lesser figure—lesser in size and boldness of relief, and hence in status—is attached. At least that is the scene on La Venta Altar 4. The San Lorenzo specimen is so eroded and battered that the rope is no longer visible, nor does the captive’s lower arm, with the wrist caught between the strands of rope, remain. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that these features were originally present. Domination of one figure by another was thus strikingly represented. The problem in this case is that the captive bears no indicators showing alien origin. The avian foot on the headgear on the San Lorenzo figure may have had some locative meaning, but we cannot translate it. Our only recourse is to assume that the captives represented unimportant persons.