The Cascajal Block is a tablet-sized slab serpentinite dated to the early first millennium BCE, incised with previously unknown characters that have been claimed to represent the earliest writing system in the New World. Archaeologist Stephen D. Houston of Brown University said that this discovery helps to "link the Olmec civilization to literacy, document an unsuspected writing system, and reveal a new complexity to [the Olmec] civilization."

Discovery

The Cascajal Block was discovered by road builders in the late 1990s in a pile of debris in the village of Lomas de Tacamichapan in the Veracruz lowlands in the ancient Olmec heartland on the southeastern coast of Mexico. The block was found amidst ceramic shards and clay figurines and from these the block is dated to the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán phase, which ended c. 900 BCE, preceding the oldest Zapotec writing dated to c. 500 BCE. Archaeologists Carmen Rodriguez and Ponciano Ortiz of the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico examined and registered it with government historical authorities. It weighs about 11.5 kg and measures 36 ×. Details of the find were published by researchers in the 15 September 2006 issue of the journal Science.

Analysis

The Olmec flourished on the Gulf Coast of Mexico c. 1250–400 BCE. The evidence for the Cascajal writing system is based solely on the text on the Cascajal Block, but existence of a system of Olmec hieroglyphs has been postulated independently from the Cascajal Block on the basis of previous discoveries of glyphs individually or in small groups. Their relation with the Cascajal Block is unclear. The block holds a total of 62 glyphs, some of which resemble plants such as maize and pineapple, or animals such as insects and fish. Many of the symbols are more abstract boxes or blobs. The symbols on the Cascajal block are unlike those of any other writing system in Mesoamerica, such as in Mayan languages or Isthmian, another extinct Mesoamerican script. The Cascajal block is also unusual because the symbols apparently run in horizontal rows and "there is no strong evidence of overall organization. The sequences appear to be conceived as independent units of information". All other known Mesoamerican scripts typically use vertical rows.

Authors of the report

Interpretations

Skepticism of interpretation

Skepticism of authenticity

Some archaeologists are skeptical of the tablet:

Formal criticism

The most comprehensive criticism was published in the journal Science, the publisher of the original study, on 9 March 2007. In a letter, archaeologists Karen Bruhns and Nancy Kelker raise five points of concern: A rebuttal to the criticism by the authors of the original study was published directly following the letter:

Archaeometric analyses

A 2019 study by Joshua D. Englehardt et al. made an effort to establish the origin of the block via archaeometric techniques. Their findings supported the authenticity of the block as an Olmec-age artifact based on several qualities: