A Florida State University anthropologist and a team of researchers have discovered the earliest
evidence of writing in the New World, a finding that challenges previously held ideas about who
invented the first Mesoamerican system of writing.
(Left: Riverine landscape, Tabasco, Mexico. Photo by Christopher von Nagy.)
FSU Professor
Mary E.D. Pohl and co-researchers Kevin O. Pope of Geo Eco Arc Research and Christopher von Nagy
of Tulane University uncovered a cylinder seal and fragments of a carved greenstone plaque bearing
glyphs dating to 650 B.C. during a recent excavation in the Gulf Coast of Tabasco, Mexico. The
discovery provides evidence that it was the Olmec culture that was the first in Mesoamerica to
formalize writing and a calendar system.
(Right: Mary Pohl drawing pit profile at San Andres excavation in Tabasco,
Mexico. Photo by Christopher von Nagy.)
Scholars had previously traced the earliest writing and the calendar, two hallmarks of the
Mesoamerican civilization, to Oaxaca in southwestern Mexico, but the evidence there may date to
sometime after 300 B.C. "The Olmec initiated many of Mesoamerica's cultural traditions, including
urban settlement and monumental architecture, so it was odd that writing had been attributed to other
groups," Pohl said. "Since the Olmec were the first to put together a political state, and writing is
closely connected with rulers in terms of publicizing their power, it makes sense that they would be
the first to use a system of writing. But up until now, no one had found any evidence of that."
The results of the find are published in the Dec. 6 issue of
Science magazine. The research was funded by the
National Science Foundation and the Foundation for the
Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies Inc. and supported by the New World Archaeological Foundation
and Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia.
