THE ORIGIN OF THE MAYA CIVILIZATION. 415 
more backward elements, later to become the Huasteca, were left behind 
in the region between the Panuco River and Tuxpam in the State of Vera 
Cruz. Moving southeastward, slowly we may feel sure, the Maya would 
appear to have been established in the region around San Andres Tuxtla in 
8.6.2.4.17, by which time their chronology, hieroglyphic writing, notational 
system, and proficiency in stone-carving were sufficiently perfected to 
enable them to carve upon a hard, refractory material such as nephrite an 
inscription in their graphic system. 
Up to this point our history of the probable movements and activities 
of the Maya has been largely speculative, based principally upon the exist- 
ence of a Maya-speaking people of non-Mayan culture far to the northwest 
of the recognized Maya culture and linguistic areas, and upon the prove- 
nance and date of the Tuxtla Statuette, but from this time onward we enter 
upon firm historical ground. 
By 8.14.10.13.15, some 165 years later, we find the Maya established at 
Uaxactun in northern Peten, 600 kilometers still farther south and east, and 
by 9.2.10.0.0 and probably by 9.1.10.0.0, 160 or 140 years later respectively, 
we find them in the Copan Valley and sufficiently at home there to be quarry- 
ing, carving, and erecting monuments and presumably in building a city. 
If the hypothesis advanced here is correct, namely, that Uaxactun and 
Tikal are much older than Copan, at least by a century, we need not look 
for the beginnings of the Maya hieroglyphic writing at Copan at all, or indeed 
for inscriptions much earlier than Stela 20, since under this hypothesis the 
Maya are assumed to have developed and perfected their chronological sys- 
tem and hieroglyphic writing, even to the point of recording it upon stone 
monuments, long before they reached Copan, and the beginnings of it must 
be sought elsewhere, possibly in northern Peten, but more probably some- 
where on the Gulf Coast-plain of Mexico between the Panuco and Grijalva 
Rivers. 
HISTORY OF COPAN DURING THE OLD EMPIRE. 
THE EARLY PERIOD. 
As deciphered in Chapters II, III, and IV, probably 95 per cent. of the 
Copan dates are correct as given; certainly those which are recorded as 
Initial Series, Secondary Series, and Period Endings have no greater propor- 
tion of error than 1 out of 20; and of the remaining Calendar Round dates 
at least 75 per cent. are probably correctly deciphered. Moreover, if the last 
also happen to be hotun-endings as well, such as the contemporaneous dates 
of Altars Z, G3, QO, W’, W, Go, and G,;, Temple 21a, and the Reviewing-stand 
in the Western Court for example, the percentage of accurately deciphered 
dates is even higher. Thus, in spite of effacement due to erosion and break- 
age, and even the loss of essential parts of the record on still missing fragments, 
it is probable that less than 5 per cent. of the readings suggested in the fore- 
going pages are incorrect. 
