Talk:Tres Zapotes

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When was Tres Zapotes founded?

The following sentence in the article contains a contradiction:

Founded some time in the centuries before 1000 BCE, Tres Zapotes emerged as a regional center early in the Middle Formative period, perhaps 900 - 800 BCE, roughly coinciding with the decline of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan.

900 - 800 BCE is not "in the centuries before 1000 BCE. 1000 BCE is before 900 BCE. 900 BCE is before 800 BCE. When was Tres Zapotes founded? ErinHowarth (talk) 19:33, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. It's not a contradictory statement, though I can see how it might be ambiguously read that way. Evidence for occupation at the site dates as far back, like it says, to sometime in the 2nd millennium BCE (with some Ocos phase artefacts, going back maybe as far as 1700BCE). The site later develops characteristics of a regional centre, in the Middle Formative (900-800 BCE), for a period of time (it later declines again, then has some revivals as a significant centre once more, or several times more, over the following millennium). It is generally understood to have had a very long, practically continuous occupation, but large segments of this are still quite patchily known. One really can't say exactly when it was founded, but evidence for occupation does go back into that Early Formative period. --cjllw ʘ TALK 14:48, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]