The earliest people to settle in Meso-America are the Olmec. The Olmec had a rich society and traded with neighboring tribes such as the Mokaya which were a civilization of the Soconusco region. The Olmec civilization was thought to decline because of natural ecological changes like climate change or human actions such as warfare.
The Olmec culture was the civilization that developed during the Preclassic period of Mesoamerica. Although vestiges of its presence have been found in large areas of Mesoamerica, it is considered that the Olmec nuclear area -the metropolitan zone- covers the southeastern part of the state of Veracruz and the west of Tabasco.
The economy of the Olmecs was based on agricultural products, with which they traded, both among themselves and with other neighboring peoples, especially with nomadic peoples, or with peoples as geographically distant from them as may be peoples of the country of Guatemala or of central Mexico.
Many items were traded between North Africa and West Africa, but the two goods that were most in demand were gold and salt. The North Africans wanted gold, which came from the forest region south of Ghana. The people in the forests wanted salt, which came from the Sahara.
