La Mojarra is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

in the

Mexican state The states of Mexico are first-level administrative territorial entities of the country of Mexico, which is officially named Mexico, United Mexican States. There are 32 federal entities in Mexico (31 states and the capital, Mexico City, as a sepa ...

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

, located not far from the

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississ ...

at a bend in the Acula River. It was continually occupied from the late

Formative period Several chronologies in the archaeology of the Americas include a Formative Period or Formative stage etc. It is often sub-divided, for example into "Early", "Middle" and "Late" stages. The Formative is the third of five stages defined by Gord ...

(ca. 300

BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

) until perhaps as late as 1000 CE. Not a large site, La Mojarra has been little excavated. It covers roughly 1 km² and consists of small mounds and a modest plaza. Three

kilns A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay int ...

have been unearthed, which fired locally used orange pottery. Nonetheless, La Mojarra and environs have yielded two important

Epi-Olmec culture The Epi-Olmec culture was a cultural area in the central region of the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz. Concentrated in the Papaloapan River basin, a culture that existed during the Late Formative period, from roughly 300 BCE to roughly 250 C ...

artifacts:

La Mojarra Stela 1 La Mojarra Stela 1 is a Mesoamerican carved monument (stela) dating from 156 CE (2nd century CE). It was discovered in 1986, pulled from the Acula River near La Mojarra, Veracruz, Mexico, not far from the Tres Zapotes archaeological site. The by ...

and the

Tuxtla Statuette The Tuxtla Statuette is a small 6.3 inch (16 cm) rounded greenstone figurine, carved to resemble a squat, bullet-shaped human with a duck-like bill and wings. Most researchers believe the statuette represents a shaman wearing a bird m ...

. Both of these artifacts contain what has been classified as

Epi-Olmec script The Isthmian script is a very early Mesoamerican writing system in use in the area of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec from perhaps 500 Common Era, BCE to 500 CE, although there is disagreement on these dates. It is also called the La Mojarra script an ...

as well as very early Long Count calendar dates.

References

*Diehl, Richard A. (2000) “Mojarra, La (Veraruz, Mexico),” in ''Archaeology of Ancient Mexico & Central America: an Encyclopedia''; Routledge, London. *Diehl, Richard A. (2004) ''The Olmecs: America’s First Civilization'', Thames & Hudson, London. {{coord, 18.6153, N, 95.7417, W, source:wikidata, display=title Mesoamerican sites Epi-Olmec sites Former populated places in Mexico Archaeological sites in Veracruz