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Science 3 March 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5765, p. 1209
DOI: 10.1126/science.311.5765.1209g
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This Week in Science

Writing has been thought to have emerged in the New World in the Olmec culture, or more broadly near Oaxaca; clear evidence is seen in these regions by about 300 B.C., and some finds suggest an origin one to three centuries earlier. Aside from a few hints, clear writing in Maya ruins was enigmatically found only for much later dates. Saturno et al. (p. 1281, published online 5 January; see the Perspective by Houston) now describe a series of hieroglyphs from a deep room in a Maya temple that was built between 200 and 300 B.C. Writing appeared to emerge in the Maya region near the time when it appeared widely elsewhere in Mesoamerica.




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