At the Texas Seminar in Austin, Federico Fahsen gave a presentation on "Early Writing at Kaminaljuyu" that presents a different perspective. I believe he dates this stela as third or fourth century. This puzzles me - I would give it an older date.

I have a lot more to learn yet about this. An excellent paper on the earliest Mesoamerican writing by Joyce Marcus is presented on the web by the Mesoamerica Foundation and The Stevenson Press. The article on First Dates originally appeared in the series "The Maya Rediscovered" in Natural History magazine. Science magazine's web site also features the article "A Newly Discovered Column in the Hieroglyphic Text on La Mojarra Stela 1: A Test of the Epi-Olmec Decipherment" by linguists John S. Justeson and Terrence Kaufman.

From my perspective, the iconographic writing of the Zapotecs of Oaxaca seems to share characteristics with the older writing that to me would indicate some degree of continuity with the older script. Further study of the ancient script found on the Lost World Stela at Tikal and on many carved and ceramic objects normally grouped with general Maya Glyphs may bear investigation in our quest for understanding of early precolumbian writing.