414 MAN ' PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



southward spread of Maya culture from the Mexican tableland. 

 Nearly thirty caves examined by this explorer failed 

 to yield any remains either of the mastodon, mam- 

 moth, or horse, or of early man, elsewhere so often 

 associated with these animals. Hence Mr Mercer infers that the 

 Mayas reached Yucatan already in an advanced state of culture, 

 which consequently was not developed on the spot, but remained 

 unchanged till the conquest. In the caves were found great 

 quantities of good pottery, generally well baked and of sym- 

 metrical form, the oldest quite as good as the latest where they 

 occur in stratified beds, showing no progress anywhere. Yet the 

 first arrivals had no metals or domestic animals, not even the 

 dog, while the fractured bones occurring at Loltun, Sabaka and 

 some other places, raise suspicions of cannibalism. 



Mr Edward H. Thompson, however, who has also examined 

 some of these caves, declares that "none of the human bones 

 showed any trace of being charred by fire, or any other evidence 

 of cannibalism." In other respects he agrees with Mr Mercer, 

 and expresses his conviction that " no people or race of so-called 

 cave-people ever existed in Yucatan, and that while these caves 

 of the Loltun type were undoubtedly inhabited, it was by the 

 same race that built the great stone structures now in ruins. And 

 I furthermore believe that the caves were only temporary places 

 of refuge and not permanent habitations 1 ." 



Since the conquest the Aztecs, as well as the other cultured 

 nations of Anahuac, have yielded to European influences to a far 

 greater extent than the Maya-Quiche's of Yucatan and Guatemala. 

 In the city of Mexico the last echoes of the rich Nahuatl tongue 

 have almost died out, and this place, although formerly the chief 

 seat of Aztec culture, has long been one of the leading centres of 

 Spanish arts and letters in the New World 2 . But Merida, standing 

 on the site of the ancient Ti-hoo, has almost again become a 

 Maya town, where the white settlers themselves have been largely 



1 Cave of Loltun, Yucatan, Report of Explorations by the Peabody 

 Cambridge, Mass. 1897. 



- "In the city of Mexico everything has a Spanish look" (Brocklehurst, p. 

 15). The Aztec language however is still current in the surrounding districts 

 and generally in the provinces forming part of the former Aztec empire. 



