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September 14, 2006

Brown professor helps find ancient writing

A team including a Brown University anthropologist have found what could be the earliest known writing in North and South America.

It appears on an ancient slab of green stone inscribed with insects, ears of corn, fish and other symbols. No one has deciphered the message.

Brown University anthropologist Stephen Houston says the stone represents the first evidence of writing in the New World. His team published details about the tablet's discovery this week in a scientific journal.

The ancient writer, probably part of the Olmec civilization, etched the symbols about 2,900 years ago.

Villagers in Mexico found the tablet sometime before 1999, while quarrying an ancient Olmec mound for road-building material.

Full story...

-- The Associated Press

Posted by Steve Peoples  at 4:00 PM | Permalink

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