PREHISTORIC MAN IN THE NEW WORLD 
THE To.trec CIVILIZATION 
The Mexican plateau advanced in civilization more 
slowly than the Maya region, although in Mexico maize 
(and through it the possibility of progress) seems to have 
developed. But in time a somewhat different although 
related civilization grew up there—that of the Toltecs. 
Among other structures, these people erected great 
pyramids, in some instances even larger than those of the 
Mayas, but in general of poorer construction and there- 
fore less well preserved. In their architecture the Toltecs 
made no use of the principle of the vault, so conspicuous 
in Maya buildings; and they differed in other respects as 
well. But although not quite so advanced, they seem to 
have been more aggressive and warlike than the Mayas. 
While the latter, early in the second millenium a. p., had 
begun to decline, at the same period the Toltec culture 
was thriving and expanding. It is accordingly at this 
time that we find traces of its influence in the Maya 
civilization. 
About the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a. p., the 
culture of the Toltecs, for reasons not yet fully under- 
stood, also began to decay, though it was very far from 
disappearing entirely. When the Spaniards arrived, under 
Cortes, in 1519, certain of their cities and centers of wor- 
ship were still flourishing. Much of southern Mexico, in 
fact, was then occupied by civilizations differing from one 
another to some extent in outward aspect, but essentially 
akin in their fundamentals. 
THE Aztec Civi LIZATION 
We have come, however, to associate the history of the 
Mexican plateau especially with the people called the 
Aztecs. The latter, according to their own accounts, 
began as a barbarous and uncivilized tribe in 4 region to 
the north of that in which the Spaniards found them. 
Thence they moved gradually southward. About six 
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