This block with its 62 symbols may change
how you talk about the history of writing. Does this serpentine stone from Veracruz bear
Mesoamerica's oldest glyphs? It's part of an unfolding epic quest you might
not be aware of – a quest for the earliest writing in the Americas. Las Lomas de Tacamichapán, México. Workers are busting into a local gravel quarry. They're looking to gather up good road fill
because, well, "we need to do our jobs". The quarry, though, doubles as an archaeological
site called Cascajal. The roadworkers aren't insensitive to that. In fact, they have been separating out artifacts
and getting them into the hands of a local cultural caretaker, who stores them at home. Curious what all of this even is, he places
a call: "Hello, archaeology!?" Two archaeologists roll into town, take photos
and begin identification. The initial results are stunning. A few of the finds date from the same time
as the height of Olmec La Venta some 2500 years ago. Most though are older still, from the Early
Preclassic era, including the star of our story – this block, 36 by 21 by 13 centimeters,
full of what look like glyphs written roughly in rows. Experts in Mesoamerican epigraphy take note
and wonder if this might be the oldest writing in the whole hemisphere. Why is this important? And wait, is that a pineapple? Well, just decades ago scholars were asking
if the Americas even had "real" writing at all. Not always as a criticism. Maybe these are rich works of meaningful iconography. Maybe "high culture" doesn't require writing at all. We've since learned otherwise. (Not about culture. You can absolutely go cultural without going
scriptural!) No, the world has conclusively learned that
Mesoamerica birthed writing. Ancient writing, and lots of it. Libraries across Europe, from Oxford to Bologna,
keep among their holdings one-of-a-kind Aztec books. Let's clear up some terms here. First, "Aztec" is really "Mēxihcah", one
of the Nāhua people associated with the Triple Alliance. That's a story for another animation... this
one, in fact! Second, books. Academics prefer the term "codex", but, either way, there's a special meaning here:
āmoxtli aren't bound books, they're one long folded and painted hide or bark āmatl paper,
which is easy to see in this codex, which is actually a Mixtec book we'll come back to. Some āmoxtli date to just after the Spanish
conquest, and a precious few survive from before the siege of Tenochtitlán. These get labelled picture books, at
best a kind of pre-writing. Problem: it's not so simple. These glyphs may not be pictographic half
measures. We absolutely should get into decipherment here,
the arguments and uncertainties, but how we're now learning to read Nāhua glyphs is also
for another time. All told, it implies this civilization started
writing more than 500 years ago. Some of the oldest painted books held in European
stashes aren't Aztec, Mexica, but from peoples of Oaxaca that the Mexica called Mixtec, people
of the cloud, adapted from their names: Rain People. Rain glyph painters are known for their sophisticated
books full of ancestral history, and these may push our date back to 700 years into the
past. One epic city in the Valley of Mexico was
already using glyphs much earlier. Teotihuacán, long celebrated for its huge
monuments, turned up unexpected finds. Not on its giant pyramids but down in the
homes within what's come to be called "la plaza de los glifos". Now the language of the Teotihuacanos is notoriously
up for debate, but at over 1500 years old, their glyphs more than double our time horizon. (I know, I know, you're older. We'll get back to you, promise!) Out east, a famously literate civilization
uses writing seemingly everywhere: folded books, outdoor monuments, indoor monuments,
even on drinking cups. These are in Maya. Four legible Maya books survived massive colonial
destruction, including what's likely to be the oldest book from the Americas. Other book remnants unearthed at Maya sites
hold their breath for scientific breakthroughs before they can even be opened without disintegrating. (And if it looks like art not writing, yes and...
you can be both! And when the time comes to animate what Classic
Maya sounded like, know that I'm preparing for it.) But older Maya glyphs show up in stucco or
stone, originally painted, since about 1800 years ago. Meanwhile, closer to the Pacific lie Kaminaljuyu
and Tak'alik Abaj. These cities were not Maya... not exclusively. At a crossroads of Mesoamerica's many languages
from many families, these sites may get overlooked now, but millennia ago they predated and surpassed
their neighbors in structure building... and glyph writing. The language could be Mixe-Zoque? Maya? Both? But it's no stretch to say they were writing
2000 years ago. But that's still late. Update! A brief report on finds from Guatemala swoops
in and suddenly pushes back the date for the earliest Maya writing to at least 2200 or
2300 years ago. Amidst the frenzy of interest around Maya,
inscriptions come to light from what's long suspected of being Mesoamerica's "mother",
but is honestly more like your precocious cousin. Olmec sites turn up amazing structures...
and early dates. Standouts include representations of great
figures and the famously massive heads. But writing here looks somewhat younger, in
a script called "Isthmian". Examples are few but exciting. A stela pulled from a river near La Mojarra
is the longest. Despite claims that this is definitely Zoque
and definitely decipherable, the jury's out. The oldest though come from Chiapas: the earliest long count date yet found anywhere, and a piece of pottery with signs
2400 years old. The sun rises ever earlier on Mesoamerican
writing. Meanwhile, elsewhere, there's a place of clouds
we need to visit before our story circles right back to its start. An unexpectedly fertile land for scribes lies
west. It seems an unlikely contender from where
we've spent time, but seeing the impressive sites rise above the Valleys of Oaxaca, you
might be amazed but not surprised to learn that Oto-Manguean peoples here have native
writing, too, including the Ñuiñe and earlier the Zapotec. 18 kilometers away from famous Monte Albán,
a modest site yields a stone with a human image, and below the image, the earliest Zapotec
writing yet identified – over 2500 years old. And now we're prepared to see, to feel why
unearthing this Cascajal block was so significant. It hails from Olmec territory. Even on closer inspection, it really does
look like its symbols represent writing and come from an early period. Yet again, it's from centuries before the
last accepted date for oldest script in Mesoamerica. There are hunches about the language. (It's Olmec, so Mixe-Zoque comes up.) But careful minds continue to warn: we
don't know what this says. As always with undeciphered scripts, more
evidence is required. And with how this tale has gone, who knows
if the next river or mound will uncover yet older glyphs. In the meantime, stick around and subscribe for language.
Saw this earlier this week. Great find.
Nice :) suscribed!
Ir may be, there´s no enough evidence in order to proof that as writing
Superb video. The production was phenomenal.