Mesoamerica

The Cascajal Block, an unassuming serpentinite slab discovered in the late 1990s in the Mexican state of Veracruz, has completely reshaped our understanding of early literacy in the New World. Unearthed by road builders in a pile of debris in the village of Lomas de Tacamichapa, this artifact contains previously unknown characters that researchers believe represent the earliest writing system in the Americas. The discovery has pushed back the timeline of writing in Mesoamerica by several centuries, providing compelling evidence that the ancient Olmec civilization possessed a fully developed written language. Dating to the early first millennium BC, specifically around 900 BC, the Cascajal Block precedes the oldest known Zapotec writing by roughly 400 years. This revelation links the Olmec