THE ORIGIN OF THE MAYA CIVILIZATION. 403 
Let us examine these several lines of evidence in the above order. The 
Tuxtla Statuette was found near San Andres Tuxtla, in the State of Vera 
Cruz, Mexico, about 1902, and was acquired for the United States National 
Museum by Holmes in 1903. (See fig. 63.) It is 
of nephrite, 16.5 cm. high, 9.5 cm. in diameter at 
the broadest place, and represents a bird-like figure 
with a human head. On the front, as already noted 
several times, is inscribed the date 8.6.2.4.17, which 
is some 160 years earlier than the next earliest date, 
1.é.,on the Leyden Plate, and is the earliest date yet 
discovered in the Corpus Inscriptionum Mayarum. 
Bowditch has challenged the accuracy of this read- 
ing, and indeed that these glyphs record an Initial 
Series at all;! but on insufficient grounds the writer 
believes,” and the general opinion now is, that this 
specimen is not only genuine, but that its date also 
probably corresponds with the time of its execution. 
This date, as the writer has shown elsewhere,’ 
is recorded in bar-and-dot numerals without the 
accompanying period-glyphs, the value of the latter being determined by 
their positions from bottom to top in the number itself, like the Initial 
Series in the Dresden Codex.‘ 
The provenance of this specimen, because of its very early date, is thus 
of unusual importance as possibly indicating where the Maya first began 
to record their chronology, and particularly so in view of the fact that it was 
recovered from a region where distinctive Maya remains have not been 
found. Indeed, San Andres Tuxtla is in Nahua® country about 225 kilo- 
meters north of west from Comalcalco, the westernmost Maya site now 
known.® In other words, it lies some distance outside of the territory now 
definitely associated with Maya remains, such as the typical Maya archi- 
tecture and sculpture, for example. 
Turning next to the second line of evidence mentioned above, the 
Huasteca, a Maya-speaking people living on the Gulf Coast-plain of Mexico 
between Tuxpam and the Panuco River, in the States of Vera Cruz, Hidalgo, 
San Luis Potosi, and Tamaulipas, a unique condition is found. (See fig. 
64.) Here we have a Maya linguistic island surrounded by a sea of Totonaca, 
Nahua, Otomi, and Tamaulipeca, that is to say, a branch of the Maya 
linguistic stock entirely separated by intervening stocks from the main 
body of the family, the nearest branch of which to the Huasteca 1s the 
Chontal, 750 kilometers to the southeast.’ Nor is this linguistic isolation the 
only extraordinary feature about the Huasteca. Although speaking a Maya 
dialect, their prehistoric culture, judging from its remains, shows no resem- 

of Tuxtla Statuette. 



1 Holmes, 1907, pp. 695, 696. 3 Morley, 1915, pp. 194-196. 5 Thomas, I91I, map. 
2 [bid., pp. 696-700. 4 [bid., pp. 266-273. _ ®Charnay, 1887, pp. 194-210. 
7It is possible that the Totonaca were also originally a Maya branch. See Thomas, rgrt, p. 49. 
