Stone writing earliest seen in Americas

It's more than idle doodling and the meaning is unclear. But there's one thing researchers are sure of: The insect, ear of corn, inverted fish and other symbols inscribed on an ancient stone slab is the earliest known writing in the Western Hemisphere....

"We are dealing with the first, clear evidence of writing in the New World," said Stephen Houston, a Brown University anthropologist. Houston and his U.S. and Mexican colleagues detail the tablet's discovery and analysis in a study appearing this week in the journal Science.

The patterns covering the face of the rectangular block also represent a previously unknown ancient writing system — a rare find in archaeology.

The text covers the block's face, which is almost exactly the dimensions of a standard legal pad. However, at 5 inches thick and tipping the scales at 26 pounds, the tablet is decidedly more hefty.

The face is smooth and slightly concave, which suggests it may have been worn down in antiquity as it was inscribed and erased multiple times, Houston said.

Villagers in the Mexican state of Veracruz discovered the tablet sometime before 1999, while quarrying an ancient Olmec mound for road-building material. News of the discovery slowly trickled out, and the study's authors traveled to the site earlier this year to examine and photograph the block.