284 CEETAIN ANTIQUITIES OF EASTERN MEXICO [eth. ANN. 25 



CO.NCLUSIOXS 



The most important conclusion arrived at in tiiese general studies 

 resolves itself into a plea for additional field work. The earth mounds 

 in eastern Mexico are temple foundations, solid throughout, evidently 

 having been constructed in their jjresent form rather than resulting 

 from the decay and falling of the ancient habitations with superadded 

 gi-owths and debris. These mounds belong, in other words, to the 

 second rather than to the first type of earth mounds, and once had 

 superstructures on their tops. The nearest northern analogues of these 

 mounds must be looked for in the Mississippi valley rather than in 

 the pueblo region of North America. On the south they are related 

 to the pyramidal temple mounds of Vera Cruz. Other important 

 relations might be discovered if we knew more of the archeology of 

 the vast region that lies between the mound ai'ea of southern Tamau- 

 lipas and western Louisiana. 



It has been shown by several historians that superstructures once 

 existed on the apices of some of the mounds of the southern Missis- 

 sippi valley, and it is claimed that they were used as temples by a 

 people identical with modern tribes of Indians at the time of their 

 discover}' bj' Europeans. This claim is supported by historical and 

 archeological investigations which show conclusively the identity in 

 kinship of the mound builders and certain modern tribes where the 

 older culture had survived. 



The northern Indian of certain parts of the Mississippi valley bore 

 somewhat the same relation to those who built some of the mounds as 

 the surviving Totonac and Huaxtec do to their own ancestors who 

 erected the temple mounds of Vera Cruz and Taniaulipas. The build- 

 ings above described were undoubtedly in use by Huaxtec at the close 

 of the fifteenth century, and possibly the same may be said of some of 

 the mounds in Vera Cruz. The change in culture in both instances 

 maj^ have been due to the same cause — the coming of Europeans. The 

 present culture of the survivors of the mound builders of the Missis- 

 sippi valley and of those of the Tamaulipas mound region is very difier- 

 ent from that of their ancestors. While there survives in the Indian 

 Territory and elsewhere certain remnants of the mound-builder cul- 

 ture, before the Europeans came a radical change in culture, largely due 

 to nomadic hostiles, had taken place throughout extensive areas in the 

 United States where mounds or other evidences of sedentary popula- 

 tion are found. Apparently northern Tamaulipas was inhabited by 

 wild tribes at the time the Spaniards first sailed along the coast, but 

 whether these tribes were preceded by a people having a mound-build- 

 ing culture is as yet unknown. From the most northern of the known 

 Tamaulipas mounds, or those near Aldama, to the Rio Grande river is 

 a region of great possibilities, but until more of this archeological 

 terra incognita shall have been properly studied, there will be but 

 little inducement to new speculation on the relationship of the mounds 

 of Louisiana and those of the eastern part of Mexico. 



