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Although objects in what is now known as the Olmec artistic style had been recognized in Mexican collections for many years, their distinctive characteristics and coherence as a unified tradition were first identified by the archaeologist George C. Vaillant in 1932, who gave the style its name. Most examples were found in southern Veracruz and neighbouring Tabasco, the heartland of Olmec civilization. Early investigators, including Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge, visited major sites such as La Venta but initially attributed the monuments to the Maya. Extensive excavations by Matthew W. Stirling at Tres Zapotes and La Venta between 1938 and 1943 revealed the full splendour of Olmec civilization through colossal stone heads, monumental sculpture, finely worked jade figurines, and other artefacts. Debate soon arose over the dating of the culture. Based on ceramic evidence, Philip Drucker and many contemporary archaeologists believed that Olmec art reached its height during the Early Classic period, although it may have originated earlier. Stirling, however, argued that its florescence belonged to the Preclassic period, citing the evidence of Stela C at Tres Zapotes. His view was supported by Mexican archaeologists such as Alfonso Caso and Ignacio Bernal, who found Olmec-related carvings in the clearly Preclassic phase of Monte Albán, as well as by Miguel Covarrubias, who recovered Olmec figurines from the Preclassic site of Tlatilco. These conflicting interpretations were debated at the 1942 Mesa Redonda in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, organized by the Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología. There, Caso and Covarrubias presented influential definitions of the Olmec style and its distribution through time and space, and the conference ultimately concluded that the Olmec culture belonged to the Preclassic period despite its remarkably advanced artistic and cultural achievements.