Writing May Be Oldest in Western Hemisphere

[Tonchi]

Guess what? Photos of this artifact HAVE been heavily PhotoShopped. The incisings would be practically invisible otherwise. In reading other documents online, I found this photo of the stone as it really appears. I also found out that it actually turned up in 1999 in a quarry and did NOT get excavated in situ. That fact alone would make most archaeologists very suspicious. BTW, previous to this, whatever "this" is, nobody has been able to verify any Olmec "writing" other than calendar dates. One author claimed that the Olmec were making paper out of tree bark before the birth of Christ, but he gives no evidence for why he believes this and it is certain that none of this "paper" survived in the climate. Mesoamerican civilizations did not pass down artifacts from prior civilizations, they thoroughly destroyed everything instead and often took all the credit for previous accomplishments by revising their own histories.

http://archaeology.about.com/od/olme...ajal-block.htm

Sorry that the photo is too large for me to upload it here.