Mesoamerican Events

DIG UNCOVERS EARLIEST WRITING IN NEW WORLD, Tallahassee, FL

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.
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.

Read the entire press release here, or for more information on this fascinating discovery read the paper highlighting the study.

Brown Bag Talks

Brown Bag Seminars will be held every Wednesday, 12:30-1:30pm in the graduate student lounge at the Department of Anthropology. For more information, please contact Stephanie Litka.