INDIAN SETTLEMENTS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 555 



which the Tzenal group, however, did not share, while the lowland 

 tribes, each in its most original manner, attained high success in the 

 same art, no doubt largely assisted by the favorable stone material 

 which they found at hand. In like manner the peculiar qualities of the 

 outcropping stone no doubt led in the Choi territory to making relievo 

 works, in the Chorti territory to monolithic sculpture, and in northern 

 Yucatan to a sculptural adornment of their houses. 



A very long time must, of course, have elapsed between the time 

 when simple buildings were raised by the primitive Maya family and 

 the days when the beautifully developed architecture of temples in 

 Sajacabaja of original Copan pyramids, of excessively adorned stone 

 houses in Yucatan, of defiant Ticul structures, and of harmoniously 

 composed and ornamented edifices in Palenque began to show itself. 

 Hence, we assume with certainty that each one of'theMaya tribes here 

 mentioned may have occupied their present homes for a more or less 

 extended period of time, and that their architecture was developed 

 only within this time. The influence of the surrounding stone material 

 on this architecture may here and there become perceptible, and the 

 locally limited origin, as well as the locally varying development of 

 this architecture, will clearly show that any influence of Asiatic styles 

 of architecture is absolutely excluded. It is true that so fir the study 

 of the architectural ruins has given no clew to the original home and to 

 possible former migrations of the Maya family. F can, therefore, here 

 only express the wish and the hope that future and more extensive 

 studies, made on a broader basis, may succeed in establishing the views 

 here suggested more firmly in determining the exchange of culture by 

 comparing the architecture of neighboring races, and in thus providing 

 a safe basis for prehistoric research. 



