Newly Discovered Stone Block Believed to be Oldest Writing in New World

A stone block inscribed with patterned images found in Veracruz, Mexico, is believed to be the oldest example of writing in the New World, according to a report in the 15 September 2006 issue of the journal Science.

The stone was discovered in a gravel quarry near the former capital of the Olmec civilization—the Western World’s oldest. Carmen Rodriguez Martinez and Ponciano Ortiz Ceballos led a multi-disciplinary team that determined that the block dates to the first millennium of the Common Era. It is older than previous finds in the Mesoamerica region, which runs from central Mexico to the northwestern border of Costa Rica. The glyphs—or shapes given a symbol—are similar to other Olmec imagery and the pattern appears to be a writing system. Interestingly, the text runs horizontally as opposed to vertically which is seen in later Mesoamerican texts. According to experts, some of the signs, or characters, are repeated, along with patterns of variable as well as short and repeated sequences.

The Olmecs were sophisticated enough to create colossal statues of heads up to eight feet tall. “This block shows a whole new dimension to the society,” said co-author Stephen Houston, “and opens up the possibility of accounting and recordkeeping.”

The next step for researchers is to decode the 62-sign tablet and determine its relationship with other anthropological finds in Mesoamerica, such as writing from the Indus civilization.

Evelyn Brown

15 September 2006