38 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 146 
work designs with raised borders as decoration for mirrors, and 
various paraphernalia of the ritual ball game ( Proskouriakoff , 1954). 
We have never been much impressed by claims that Teotihuacan 
continued its existence into the Late Classic (a.d. 600-900) Period. 
On the contrary, every piece of evidence points to its destruction 
around the end of the sixth century.^ After the close of the Early 
Classic, Teotihuacan vessels and other artifacts cease to be deposited in 
foreign tombs, and Mexican influence over southeastern Mesoamerica 
suddenly comes to a halt. Regional cultures such as Zapotec or Maya 
continue on their own undisturbed courses, becoming even more 
idiosyncratic than before. The Late Classic, in fact, marks the very 
peak of Maya civilization in the lowlands; this is their great age of 
temple building, stela carving, polychrome pottery, and wall painting, 
as seen in such awe-inspiring sites as Tikal, Palenque, Bonam- 
pak, and Copan. On the other hand, we have very little idea of what 
took place at this time in the so-called "Maya" highlands (which we 
have always thought were Maya in language only). Perhaps, as Bor- 
hegyi (MS.) suggests, nothing at all happens up there but a feeble 
continuation of an older peasant life. 
Yucatan, following the Early Classic, presents a problem in chro- 
nology. It was once thought that the Puuc-style sites of northern Yu- 
catan, with their building fagades embellished with geometric ara- 
besques of cut stone, were built following the end of the Classic as 
the result of a supposed Maya migration from the now-abandoned 
Peten. The name "New Empire" was thus given to these remains ( Mor- 
ley, 1946). Later excavations, however, failed to associate the charac- 
teristic Post-Classic ware of southeastern Mesoamerica, Tohil Plum- 
bate, with these sites, and they were then placed in the Late Classic 
Period, the full temporal equivalent of the great civilization of the 
Peten (Thompson, 1945, p. 8). Nevertheless, subsequent excavations 
have made it seem more likely to us that the Puuc style belongs right 
at the border between Classic and Post-Classic, and that its sites may 
have been occupied beyond the abandonment of the Peten. As in the 
probably coeval Xochicalco of the central Mexican highlands, there 
are three influences present in the Puuc style: One from the Gulf 
coast, particularly from the Classic Veracruz site of El Taj in; one 
from central Mexico which may even be Toltec ; and a Classic Maya 
element, probably a legacy from older Classic cultures in the same 
^ This point of view has been confirmed in a recent analysis of Teotihuacan 
ceramics by Florencia Miiller and Robert E. Smith (personal communication). 
The "Late Classic" in the Valley of Mexico (and, by extension, Valley of 
Teotihuacan) is almost certainly characterized by the Coyotlatelco pottery style. 
