PREHISTORIC MAN IN THE NEW WORLD 
sculptures and wall paintings show that they made great 
use, for decorative purposes, of the plumes of various 
brightly hued tropical birds. The gorgeous headdresses 
and other ornaments of feathers must have helped give 
their stately religious ceremonies an aspect of the utmost 
magnificence. 
Thanks to the dates on the Maya monuments, we can 
reconstruct, if only in meager outline, the history of this 
most interesting people. According to tradition, they 
came from the north. Their civilization is now believed 
to have had its beginnings pretty far back in the first 
millenium s. c. It first reached its full bloom during the 
early centuries of the Christian Era, in what is known as 
the Old Empire, centering mainly in Honduras, Guatemala, 
and southern Mexico. Among ruins belonging to this 
early period are those of Copan, in western Honduras; 
Quirigua, Piedras Negras, and Tikal, in Guatemala; and 
Palenque, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. 
Between 4.bD. 600 and g60, a shift of the Maya center of 
civilization took place, for some unknown reason, from the 
comparatively hilly south to the wide, level, jungle-cov- 
ered plain of northern Yucatan. Here, between a. p. 960 
and 1195 flourished the New Empire. Among the ruins 
found in this region, along with many others, are those 
of Uxmal, Chichen-Itza, Labna, and Tuloom. 
Then followed a period of decline, hastened if not indeed 
caused by civil war. The appearance of Toltec or Mexican 
influence, clearly visible in the architecture and sculpture 
of the time, characterizes this epoch. As we have pointed 
out, the civilization of the Mayas was never the possession 
of the whole people, but only of a very small upper class. 
Hence adverse conditions of any sort easily affected it, and 
it was already far gone in decay when the Spaniards ar- 
rived. A remnant, however, survived in the remote inte- 
rior of Guatemala, about Lake Peten, until the beginning 
of the eighteenth century, when it, too, was destroyed. 
It must be emphasized that the surviving Maya ruins 
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