The three Olmec heartland centers, San Lorenzo, La Venta, and Tres Zapotes, were located in regions with different natural resources and shared these for the mutual benefit of all. San Lorenzo was a farmer's dream. In the lower areas along the river there were flood plains (level land beside a river that sometimes floods) with extremely fertile soil. In the higher areas, with an abundance of rain, the Olmec farmers could produce two maize crops per year on a single piece of land.

With easy access to the rivers, the San Lorenzo Olmecs became able traders. La Venta had access to the resources of the sea. La Venta Olmecs probably produced salt, cacao, and rubber. Historians believe the Olmecs were the first to tap rubber trees to make rubber objects. They also extracted basalt from the Tuxtla Mountains near another Olmec center, Laguna de los Cerros. The Olmecs transported the basalt in huge blocks weighing up to 20 tons (18.1 metric tons) to the various ceremonial centers, perhaps by hauling them on log rollers to large wooden rafts and then floating them along the rivers.

The trade of basalt, rubber, shells, and other substances as well as manufactured wares such as the Olmec's fine pottery provided an abundance of goods. Trade extended beyond their own centers. The Olmecs carried on extensive long-distance trade with peoples all over Mesoamerica, including the cities of Monte Alban and Teotihuacan, developing alliances and trade relations near and far.

Farmers in Olmec times grew maize, yams, squash, beans, grains, gourds, and avocados, although maize was the principal crop. The Olmecs tamed their tropical coastal environment by using slash-and-burn techniques, a way of clearing the land for cultivation by cutting down all the trees and vegetation and then burning them. This added nutrients from the burned vegetation to the soil and prepared it for new crops.

They also used river levees like those used in ancient times on the Nile River in Egypt to periodically flood their fields. About 7,000 square miles (18,130 square kilometers) of heartland is estimated to have supported about fifty people per square mile. In addition to their crops, the Olmecs ate deer, wild pigs, and fish from nearby lakes and ponds.

Some scholars of ancient history theorize that it was the successful farming of the Olmecs that led to a government run by a ruling elite. In earlier times, small groups of several families had owned and farmed the lands communally--sharing the work and benefits, with everyone more or less equal in the process. Michael D. Coe and Richard Diehl believe as a few families gained control of the best farmlands, they became wealthy and were then able to rule over others. From this class of families that had gained control through owning the best lands, a group of rulers and priests emerged. In fact, in Olmec society, rulers and priests were often one and the same; there was little difference between religious and civic rule in the Olmec society. As the power became concentrated, the Olmec society fell under the rule of shaman-kings, or priest-kings, who were also probably members of the powerful extended ruling families that owned the best lands and most of the wealth of the area. These shaman-kings were believed to have divine powers. The complex religious system the Olmecs developed in their early years served to justify the absolute rule of these shaman-kings over their people by representing their authority as something ordained by the gods.

The great cities of the Olmecs housed the elite but not the workers. They served as ceremonial centers with religious temples and palaces and had separate areas for trade. The common people lived separately from the ceremonial centers in surrounding areas and made their living as farmers. They provided labor for the ceremonial centers as well as food and goods to the ruling elite. The farmers gathered periodically in the ceremonial centers for religious or governmental celebrations. The farmers belonged to the lower classes in the newly forming class structure. There was a tremendous gap between their condition and that of the upper classes that is apparent in the difference between the lavish burials of the Olmec elite and humble burials of the farmers.

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