34 THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COPAN. 
importance in this latter connection were the contemporaneous dates of 
the different monuments. These are usually found at the beginnings of 
the inscriptions, hence Maudslay’s name “Initial Series,’ by which they 
are known, and they are of such amazing accuracy as to be fixed within a 
period of 374,000 years, a tremendous achievement for any time-count, 
European or otherwise.’ 
This truly remarkable chronological system was counted from a fixed 
starting-point, and it furnishes an exact measure of time, by means of which, 
it already appears probable, all related or connected cultures will eventually 
be datable. 
This point is of such importance as to warrant further elaboration. 
By means of the Maya chronological yardstick it is already possible to 
measure roughly the time element in the cultures immediately adjoining 
the Maya on the north: the Zapotec, the Miztec, the Totonac, the Toltec, 
and the Aztec; indeed, even to date them with considerable accuracy.” But 
in addition to this, it is eventually hoped, by means of overlapping culture 
horizons, to extend this dating as far south as the great cultures of Peru and 
Ecuador,’ and as far north as the intensive cultures of the southwestern sec- 
tion of the United States.‘ In short, it now appears as within the range of 
probability that ultimately all cultures of Middle America and of the con- 
tiguous parts of North and South America will be referable, by means of such 

1Tf, as the writer believes, the eight time-periods recorded in sequence on Stela 1o at Tikal all belong to one and 
the same Initial Series, the starting-point of Maya chronology itself was fixed in a much grander chronological 
scheme, a chronology which at the time this monument was erected had already reached more than 5,000,000 
years and might even have been expanded to 64,000,000 years without breaking down, a truly geologic conception 
of measured time. See Morley, 1915, pp. 114-127. 
2By means of this accurate chronological control, Spinden (1917) has been able to work out provisional chronol- 
ogies for the above peoples (7bid., chapter 111), which are probably more accurate than Egyptian chronology in the 
Old Empire or Babylonian chronology at the time of Hammurabi. 
3Means (19174, pp. 383-389, and 1918, pp. 152-170) has already attempted this with considerable success for 
the high cultures of Ecuador and Peru, and now the question would seem to be largely one for the archzologist, 
i. é., tracing closer cultural resemblances in pottery types, stone-carving, metal technique, and general esthetic 
designs between Central and South America. When these have been definitely established, the time element can 
be measured from the northern, that is to say, the Maya end. 
4A beginning has already been made in this field also. The discovery of copper bells of Mexican origin at a 
number of archzological sites in Arizona and New Mexico clearly points to trade relations between the Pueblo 
Indians and the tribes of central Mexico in pre-Columbian times. 
Sites where such bells have been found are Awatobi (see Fewkes, 1898, pp. 628 and 629, and figure 261), 
Black Falls (ibid., 1904, p. 50), Chaves Pass (ibid., p. 111 and figure 67), Taylor (ibid., pp. 162 and 163, and figure 108), 
and Tonto Basin (Hough, 1914, p. 37 and figure 78), all in Arizona; and Tularosa, New Mexico (Hough, ibid., p. 38 
and figure 79), and more recently at Aztec, New Mexico (Morris, 1919, p. 100 and figure 71a). Copper bells were 
also found at Pueblo Bonito, New Mexico, by the American Museum Expeditions under Putnam in 1896 et seq.; 
and they have been reported as far east as the eastern part of Tennessee. (Thomas, 18944, pp. 376 and 714, and 
figure 252.) 
These bells very closely resemble copper bells found in the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza, Yucatan (New Em- 
pire), which can hardly have been carried thither before 1200 A. D. 
The same is true of the so-called Mexican cloisonné or encaustic ware, also found both at Pueblo Bonito and at 
Chichen Itza in the Sacred Cenote, although indigenous to neither site, the region of manufacture being in the 
northern part of the State of Jalisco, Mexico—Totoate, Hacienda Estanzuela, etc., and the specimens found having 
had to be carried at least 1,600 kilometers to have reached either place. See Lumholtz, 1902, vol. 1, pp. 460-462 and 
plates 13-15, Hrdlicka, 1903, p. 385 and plate 39, and Spinden, 1917, pp. 161-164. 
Finally, the Andover-Pecos Expedition of 1915, under Kidder, found a Mexican spindle-whorl in a pre-Colum- 
bian stratum of the refuse heap at Pecos, New Mexico. 
These are sporadic cases to be sure, but they indicate none the less surely that further excavation in these 
areas will undoubtedly develop other points of contact between the Maya and the contiguous cultures of Middle, 
North, and South America, by means of which alone, in default of local chronologies, will it ever be possible to date 
the latter accurately. 

