60 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 



capable of breaking down the ordinary boundaries of 

 language and environment as these had done. In our 

 own times the horse, introduced by the Spaniards, 

 spread rapidly through native tribes, modifying their 

 lives greatly. It is capable of demonstration that with 

 the horse went the two types of saddle — the pack saddle 

 and the riding saddle. Similarly, in the rapid first 

 spreading of agriculture, pottery and possibly weaving 

 appear as parts of a complex. Of course, we must grant 

 a sufficient time in the original home of agriculture for 

 these things to be developed. 



Two maps of the New World are given herewith : the 

 first showing the extension of the archaic horizon and 

 the second the final distribution of pottery among the 

 American Indians and the final distribution of agricul- 

 ture. The agricultural area is subdivided according to, 

 first, the arid land type where irrigation is generally 

 practised ; second, the humid land type ; and third, the 

 temperate land type. The first type of agriculture 

 appears to be the earliest and the range coincides for 

 the most part with the range of the archaic pottery art. 



Local Developments of Archaic Art. We have 

 now examined the status of this earliest pottery in 

 Mexico and Central America and discussed the problem 

 of its distribution into South America. Let us next turn 

 our attention to some of the developments that took 

 place when this art was locally permitted to work out 

 its higher destinies. The sudden rise of the superior 

 culture of the Mayas snuffed it out untimely in southern 

 Mexico, but in other and more distant regions the in- 

 fluence of the ascendant Mayan civilization was less 

 strongly felt and was not sufficient to more than modify 

 the original character of the archaic art. In other 

 words, where the archaic art was given a few extra cen- 

 turies to run it arrived at superior results. 



