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ANCIENT CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO 123 numbering some 500,000 natives between Lake Atitlan and the Pacific, southern Guatemala; and (3) the Huastec (numbering about 30,000; in Vera Cruz, Hidalgo, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosi), already separated from the main stock in ancient times.
On the basis of the dates of the Mayan inscriptions, it is considered certain that there existed a Maya Old Empire, which flourished for about 450 years in southern Yucatan; the origin of its culture and the reasons of its end, are at present buried in mystery.
At the time of their first appearance, the Maya script and astronomical and mathematical knowledge are fully developed, and this presupposes * previous evolution of long duration (of which nothing is known), unless there was some cultural importation, which is hardly thinkable. As the correlation of Maya dares with our calendar is still not agreed upon there are at least three different opinions on this matter the date of the beginning of Maya Old Empire civilization is still uncertain, the most probable date being about the beginning of the Christian Era. Concerning the reason, or reasons, for the decline of Maya Old Empire (Mitchell's article on this subject in Antigianty, September, 1930, is very instructive), many theories have been suggested; one may assume that there may have been more than one reason, and it is to be hoped that future investigation will find the real solution of this and the other problems. Mitchell writes: "Rome and Copan, the dominant cities of the dominant empires of two continents, may have fallen on the same day," I should like to add; "and perhaps for similar, rather complex, reasons."
The Old Empire period was the golden age of Mayan art and culture; it was the period of the great cities of Palenque (north Chiapas), Copan (west Honduras) and many others, Copan being the main religious and cultural centre, Palenque perhaps the seat of art. The mathematical and astronomical science seem to have been far ahead of the contemporary knowledge of any other people. The Mayas had already a sign for zero; their calendar was even more accurate than the Julian calendar still in use, and is capable of dealing with periods of time of over 5,000,000 years (Fig. 69, 3). Their writing presents the same stage of advancement in the most ancient as in the most recent inscriptions. Their art is highly developed.
The later history of the Mayas, which has no bearing on our subject, may be divided into three periods: (1) the "transitional epoch," (2) the "New Empire epoch," which continued, in a rather degenerate manner, Maya tradition and culture in northern Yucatan, for some further centuries; and (3) the period of decadence" which lasted until the arrival of the Spaniards. The sites of the once flourishing Maya Old Empire were then long forgotten.
Zapotecs
The great State of Oaxaca in southern Mexico offers nowadays the most complex linguistic situation existing in Mexico; there live a large number of tribal and linguistic groups which differ greatly in culture; these differences reflect partly the heterogeneity of the pre-Columbian cultures. The most important tribes are, now as then, those of the Zapotees and Mixtecs, who in ancient times probably played the part of cultural intermediaries between the Maya Old Empire of the East, and the Toltec "Empire" of the West. Nothing, however, is known about their history. Zapotec is now spoken by several thousand Indians in the southern part of Oaxaca. A Zapotec dialect, called the Villa Alta dialect, is spoken in the Villa Alta district of north-eastern Oaxaca.
