Many scholars believe that the later gods of Mesoamerica have their roots in the deities portrayed in Olmec art. The Feathered Serpent, Quetzalcoatl, is one such: an immense serpent with a head crest appears in Olmec carvings and was probably its prototype. However, it is always possible for beliefs to change while images remain similar so such suggestions have to be treated with some caution.
Many Olmec deities are composite creations, their features taken mainly from dangerous animals such as shark, harpy eagle and cayman.
Of these jaguars are most common, and are often combined with human figures to produce the curious were-jaguar, often depicted as a floppy baby. It has been suggested that these represent some physical deformity, such as mongolism or spina bifida, that was hereditary in the ruling class and was therefore taken as a sign of divine descent.
Another important feature of Olmec religion was a concern with the movements of the heavenly bodies, demonstrated by the astronomically aligned layout of Olmec sites; knowledge of astronomy and its religious interpretation reached its peak among the later Maya.
