El Portón is a site of the Preclassic

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

n civilisation, literate and thought to be

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

. It lies in the Salamá valley. By 500 BCE, the inhabitants built terraces which allowed a more scalable population. They built temples (of earth). They dedicated the largest temple with "feasting, bloodletting, and burning of incense". The inscriptions on a stele dateable via radiology to 400 BCE are likely in a

Mayan language Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

; if so, it is the earliest such attestation.Robert J. Sharer, Loa P. Traxler; ''The ancient Maya'' (Stanford University Press; 6 edition, October 10, 2005): 197, 199, 201

References

Porton, El Former populated places in Guatemala {{Guatemala-geo-stub