stylistic:tone
Etymology

The name "Olmec" means "rubber people" in Nahuatl, the language of the Nahuas, and was the Aztec term for the people who lived in the Gulf Lowlands in the 15th and 16th centuries, some 2,000 years after the Olmec culture died out. The term "Rubber People" refers to the ancient practice, spanning from ancient Olmecs to Aztecs, of extracting latex from Castilla elastica, a rubber tree in the area. The juice of a local vine, Ipomoea alba, was then mixed with this latex to create rubber as early as 1600 BCE. The Nahuatl word for the Olmecs was Ōlmēcatl (singular) or Ōlmēcah (plural). This word is composed of the two words ōlli, meaning " natural rubber ", and mēcatl, meaning "people".