THE ORIGIN OF THE MAYA CIVILIZATION. 407 
near their original habitat, than that they were a more progressive element 
who pushed out first and more distantly than any other Maya branch; and 
finally, he believes sufficient evidence has been presented to show that it is 
extremely improbable the Maya developed their civilization in the region 
where it reached its zenith during the Old Empire, 7.e. , generally speaking, 
the Peten region of northern Guatemala. 
The hypothesis suggested below, on the other hand, should by no 
means be accepted as proved. As yet the evidence upon which it or any 
other is based, which seeks to explain the origin of the Maya civilization, is 
too insufficient to permit final conclusions, but the writer ventures to believe 
that it better meets the conditions imposed by the archzologic and linguistic 
evidence than any other. 
At some remote epoch, sufficiently prior to 8.6.2.4.17 for them to have 
developed such a complex calendar, chronology, and hieroglyphic writing 
as they possessed even at that early date (about 100 B. c., see Appendix 
II), the Maya may have lived somewhere north of their habitat during the 
Old Empire (see fig. 64); and since a Maya-speaking people still inhabit 
such a region between Tuxpam and the Panuco River, this may possibly 
have been the place. 
Before developing their calendar, chronology, hieroglyphic writing, 
and distinctive civilization, by which they were characterized in later times, 
the great mass of the stock moved south, leaving behind, perhaps, the more 
backward elements, who later developed a far lower and different culture, 
but who continued to speak the mother Maya tongue, and who later became 
the Huasteca of historic times. 
Somewhere between the above region and San Andres Tuxtla, if our 
hypothesis be correct, the Maya civilization had its origin, and their calendar 
and chronology had been perfected to such a point that by 8.6.2.4.17 they 
were able to carve upon a very hard stone (the Tuxtla Statuette has a hard- 
ness of about 7) the earliest date yet found in their hieroglyphic writing. 
How long prior to this date it took them to make and record the 
necessary astronomical observations on the sun and moon, upon which their 
calendar is based, and having at last sufficient data at hand, how long it took 
them to perfect their remarkable chronological system, is of course impossible 
to say. The first process, however, would appear a prior: to have been much 
the longer of the two. Since, once certain astronomical facts, such as the 
apparent revolutions of the sun and moon around the earth, had been deter- 
mined, the invention of the whole elaborate calendar and chronology, 
including the arithmetical and notational systems, might have been the 
work of a single individual. Such highly complex and arbitrary inventions, 
while based upon data slowly and laboriously acquired over long periods of 
time, ar 
liquidation of long-accumulated acigitaaavel investments; aH sO the actual 
construction of the Maya calendar and chronology may have come swiftly, 

