INFORMATIVE/EXPLANATORY Write a two-paragraph essay that describes the ways of life of the Olmec and the Zapotec.

The Olmecs were the first major Mexican civilization, based in what is now Veracruz and Tabasco. In the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico where they lived, their culture developed from 1500 BC to about 400 BC. At the site there were earlier civilizations as early as 2500 BC, which were displaced by the rise of the Olmecs. As the oldest civilization in Central America, it greatly influenced many of the later cultures that followed it, and laid the foundations for it. Among the characteristics of this influence are the ritual bloodshed to deities, as well as the ancient Central American type of ball game, characteristics which are also found in the later civilizations of Central America.  As for their scientific achievements, it has been argued that the Olmecs knew the meaning of the number 0 before the Mayan civilization, and independently of those of the Babylonians and Indians in the Old World.

In turn, the Zapotec civilization is the name for an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that existed in the Oaxaca Valley in southern Mesoamerica. They were a sedentary agricultural people and city builders, who worshiped a pantheon of gods led by the rain god Cosio. The priestly hierarchy regulated religious customs, which included human sacrifices, which were sometimes skinned alive. The Zapotecs worshiped their dead and believed in an underground paradise.

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explanation:

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