1895,] Archeology and Ethnology. 509 
such a position as to prove their use. Yet, so immense is the amount 
of the Mayastone work, that the wonder increases as we think of it, and 
we fancy that the kind of tool we search for, battered and cast away, 
or well-worn on its cutting-edge, should be scattered about the ruins 
thicker than potsherds. The only reasonable explanation why not one 
single such tool has ever been found, is Herr Maler’s—that the coun- 
try is too much overgrown with thicket, too much obscured by un- 
cultivatible stone heaps to make it easy to find anything. 
Stone quarries near certain of the ruins where the native limestone 
had evidently been blocked out for building had been noticed by Herr 
Maler, and, though a modern quarryman rarely loses tools at the 
quarry, it is fair to suppose that a careful and prolonged search among 
the chips at these places might disclose one or two specimens, at least, 
broken or whole, of the cutting tool sought for. If the implements 
used were stone, the chance of finding a fragment, at least, is increased, 
since breakage would have disqualified many specimens for the work. 
While much stone chipping was undoubtedly done at the ruins, during 
_ building, and while there are probably stone-cutters’ work-shops undis- 
covered close by the crumbling walls of Uxmal or Labna, it seems that 
an overhauling of these isolated quarries in the woods would easiest 
settle the vexed question. 
Herr Maler had found no traces of earlier peoples in Yucatan, such 
as in Asia and Europe meet the explorer at ever turn. If a more 
ancient race of builders had preceded the Mayas, then the latter would 
have used again previously cut stones in their houses. But they did 
not; all the evidence showing that they originally dressed their build- 
ing-stone from native rock. That the builders of the ruins lived chiefly 
on maize, beans, roots, melons and fruit he had little doubt. Flesh they 
rarely ate, and had no domestic animals except the dog. Of these he 
believed that there had been several indigenous kinds—one hairless, 
much used for food by the early Spanish explorers, existing still in 
Mexico, but now extinct in Yucatan. Another breed he supposed was 
hump-backed as is indicated by hump-backed figures of dogs, carved 
on the sixteenth century facade of Governor Montillo’s house in Merida. 
The explorer has not yet found much to astonish him in the graves 
of the ancient Mayas. Herr Maler says they lie thick near most 
mounds, rudely outlined with small rectangles of stone rather than 
indicated by earth heaps, so there is no way of discovering them when 
these little rows of stone become scattered, as is now generally the 
case, save at undisturbed spots in the remote wilds. Under them, 
skeletons, much decomposed, lie about three feet deep, sometimes in 
