Mesoamerican Studies at Florida State University is an integral component of the Department
of Anthropology
at Florida State University. A specialization in Mesoamerica is acquired through a combination of intensive course work and hands on experience in the field. Students have assisted faculty members in their field and laboratory research, and many have sought out independent fieldwork projects. Research has been conducted in Oaxaca, Tabasco, Yucatan, the Chiapas Highlands, and the southwestern Lowlands in Mexico as well as in northern and western Belize. These projects have focused on archaeology, which includes research on early agriculture, the Olmec, and the Classic period Maya, ethnobotany, ethnozoology, hierglyphic writing, mythology, ethnography, linguistics and visual anthropology. Course work is directed toward developing a stong foundation in all aspects of Mesoamerican anthropology. Students can specialize in Mesoamerica at both the Master's and P.h.D. level.
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.
