Chapter I

THE ARCHAIC HORIZON

In 1910 an actual stratification of human products was found in the environs of Mexico City in which three principal culture horizons could be readily discerned. A collection made at the time, illustrating the objects characteristic of the three strata, is on exhibition in the American Museum of Natural History. In parts this stratification verified theories of culture succession already held by students working in this field. Since that time careful research in several localities has been carried on and many authentic specimens from the three layers have been brought together.

The stratigraphic series concerns sedentary life after the invention of agriculture. Presumably a nomadic horizon preceded that of the first farmers, but few traces of this have so far been reported from southern Mexico and Central America. The earliest known specimens of the lowest level are not rudimentary but are well stylized, and opinions vary as to the length of time necessary for a theoretical formative stage. It seems necessary to consider this old civilization as a stratigraphic unit admitting the probability that true beginnings await the archæologist’s spade.

The culture of the lowest stratum is here called archaic, a word meaning old, but not necessarily primitive. The word “horizon” carries an implication of chronological succession, but it would not be wise to insist that archaic remains everywhere represent a dead chronological level. Archaic art is oldest in its place of origin, the highlands of Mexico and Central America, and in or near this general region, it was first succeeded by higher types. On the margin of its distribution archaic art, or at least the most striking traits of archaic art, lasted into much more recent times, and in some places may even have survived till the coming of the Spaniards. Even when every allowance is made for independent expressions which may find nearly the same form, it seems that remarkable homogeneity and continuity can be demonstrated for products of the archaic civilization of the New World.

Most of the evidence of the old civilization consists of ceramic objects, but there is also some stonework including implements, ornaments, and crude statues. Common household pottery shows local variations, but as a rule the archaic wares can be recognized as such by qualities of paste, shape, and decoration. The motives are simply geometric or realistic and there is a lack of formalized designs. One process of decoration has wide distribution and seems to have been invented well along in the archaic period. This is the process of negative painting in which the lines of the decorative pattern, originally applied in wax or pitch, stand out in the natural surface color of the pot against an over-painted background. This “batik” pottery extends from central Mexico to northern Peru.

The most interesting and important objects of archaic art in clay are human figurines executed in peculiar styles. These not only reflect details of dress, etc., but also seem to stand for a set of religious ideas. Especially a type of figurine representing a nude female appears to be an agricultural fetish, symbolizing the fecundity of Mother-Earth.

Stratification of Remains.

Atzcapotzalco was once an important center of the Tepanecan tribe situated on the shores of lake Texcoco. It was an early rival of Tenochtitlan, the Aztecan capital, and was conquered and partly destroyed in 1439. The principal modern industry of Atzcapotzalco is brick-making, and several mounds and much of the surface of the plain have been removed for this purpose. In the mounds are found many pottery objects of the late Toltecan period, while on the surface of the ground are encountered fragments of the typical Aztecan pottery in use when the Spaniards arrived.

The stratification of the plain varies in different places so far as the thickness of the different strata is concerned, but the order is always the same. At one locality it is as shown in Fig. 11. First comes a layer of fine soil of volcanic ash origin, probably deposited by the wind. This is five or six feet in thickness, yellowish at the top, and much darker towards the bottom, with streaks and discolorations. The Aztecan pottery is found close to the surface, while Toltecan pottery occurs in the middle and lower sections. Underneath the soil layers lies a thick stratum of water-bearing gravel mixed with sand. This gravel stratum is possibly the old bed of a stream that formerly entered Lake Texcoco near this point. In some places it is fifteen or eighteen feet in thickness. Scattered throughout the gravel are heavy, waterworn fragments of pots as well as more or less complete figurines of the archaic type.

Temple mounds of Toltecan period. Surface finds of Aztecan period. Remains of Toltecan period. Deep stratum of water-bearing gravels containing remains of archaic period. Bed rock of hard clay.

At other sites, such as Colhuacan, the Toltecan layer is of greater thickness and the archaic layer of lesser thickness. The remains extend below the present level of the water and may indicate that considerable changes have taken place in the level of the lake. But we must remember that many of the ancient settlements were built over the water and that land was made in ancient times, as it is today in the gardens of Xochimilco, by deepening canals. Archaic remains are also common on the denuded tops of hills which may once have been covered by soil.

A stratification of archæological remains has recently been determined in Salvador.

The Cemetery under the Lava.

An ancient cemetery lying under lava has recently been explored in Copilco, a suburb of Mexico City. The lava swept down from Mount Ajusco in some cataclysm perhaps 3000 years ago, covering many square miles of territory to the depth of thirty or forty feet, and burying such villages as chanced to lie in its path. (See Pl. VI_b_). The discovery of human remains was made several hundred feet back from the original front of the lava flow in a quarry where lava rock was being removed to build roads. Tales of clay figurines found under the lava in this quarry had been current for years, but no serious investigation was made until human burials were met with in the earth under the great lava cap. Then a series of tunnels was dug and a considerable number of ancient burials were uncovered, but not moved from their original position. One now enters an electric-lighted graveyard and sees human bodies lying exactly as they have lain for untold centuries, with the funeral offerings beside them. This enormously important find gives us an historical level in mid-Archaic.

Another site, at Cuicuilco, on the opposite side of the lava flow, has received attention from archæologists. Here a great round mound rises in terraces faced with cobblestones. It is surrounded by the lava flow and some persons have assumed that the mound was already abandoned and in decay when the lava flow took place. Perhaps, however, the mound was built on a piece of land that the lava flow had spared. There are no contacts between the lava and the mound except at the ends of two projecting aprons or causeways. The pottery at this site is sufficiently different from that found at Copilco.

Plate VI.

Invention of Agriculture.

Before examining in greater detail the art of the Archaic Horizon let us consider its real significance. It is generally admitted that America was originally populated from Asia, but on a culture level no higher than the Neolithic. The simple arts of stone chipping, basketry, fire-making, etc., were probably brought over by the earliest immigrants, but there is abundant evidence that pottery-making, weaving, and agriculture were independently invented long after the original settlement. The cultivated plants in the New World are different from those of the Old World and there is a vast area in northwestern America and northeastern Asia, upon the only open line of communication, where agriculture and the higher arts have never been practised.

Now the invention of agriculture is an antecedent necessity for all the high cultures of the New World. It is equally clear that this invention must have taken place in a locality where some important food plant grew in a wild state. By far the most important food plant of the New World is maize. While this plant has changed greatly under domestication, botanists are inclined to find its nearest relative and possible progenitor in a wild grass growing on the highlands of Mexico and known by the Aztecan name _teocentli_, which means sacred maize. It is known that maize is at its best in a semi-arid tropical environment. It cannot be brought to withstand frost although the growing season can be cut down to meet the requirements of a short summer. Geographically its use extended from the St. Lawrence to the Rio de la Plata and from sea level to an elevation of fifteen thousand feet in tropical regions. The Mexican highlands occupy the central position in the area of its distribution and archæological evidence strongly points to this region as being the cradle of agriculture and the attendant arts. Besides maize, the most widely distributed food plants of the New World are beans and squashes. Certain other plants were cultivated in more restricted areas and may have had different places of origin. For instance, manioc was doubtless brought under cultivation in a humid lowland region, probably the Amazon Valley, and the same may be said of sweet potatoes. The common potato was found under domestication in Peru and there is no very good evidence that its use extended into Central America.

Irrigation would have been necessary before agriculture could have been developed to any great extent on the highlands of Mexico. Although irrigation is often looked upon as a remarkable sequel of the introduction of agriculture into an arid country, yet from the best historical evidence at our command we should rather regard it as a conception which accounts for the very origin of agriculture itself. The earliest records of cultivated plants are from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mexico, and Peru where irrigation was practised. In these regions are also seen the earliest developments of the characteristic arts of sedentary peoples, namely, pottery and weaving, and the elaborate social and religious structures that result from a sure food supply and a reasonable amount of leisure.

If this theory is true we must admit that below the Archaic Horizon we should find traces of a horizon of non-agricultural peoples, living a nomadic life without pottery. Unfortunately, such peoples make fewer objects and scatter them more widely than do sedentary agriculturists.

No one on the basis of present knowledge can offer more than an opinion concerning the date of the invention of agriculture in the New World. The thick deposits left by the sedentary peoples argue great age and the wide area of homogeneous products argues slow change. In the most favored regions archaic art may have been succeeded by higher forms shortly before the time of Christ, and perhaps 5000 years is not too long a time to allow for the diversities of the domesticated plants of America.

Archaic Figurines.

Plate VII.

Archaic art is characterized by figures of men and women modeled in clay and sometimes painted. The forms are peculiar and the technique well standardized. Most are modeled in a flat gingerbread fashion into a gross shape. Upon this gross shape special features are indicated by stuck-on ribbons and buttons of clay and by gougings and incisings with some pointed instrument. Modeling was done entirely by hand, moulds being as yet unknown. The figurines are usually from two to five inches in height and often represent nude women in sitting or standing positions with the hands upon the knees, hips, or breasts. The heads are characteristically of slight depth compared with their height, the limbs taper rapidly from a rather plump torso and hands and feet are mere knobs with incised details. When the figures are intended to stand erect, as is often the case, the feet show signs of having been pinched between the thumb and finger of the potter so that they have a forward and backward cusp and a broad base of support. Groovings are seen in connection with the hair, eyes, mouth, fingers, toes, and details of dress and ornament. Paint is often added to this surface to indicate tattooing, textile patterns, etc.

The eyes of the archaic images—and the mouths as well—are made according to several methods. First, there is the simple groove; second, a groove across an applied ball or button of clay; third, a round gouging made by the end of a blunt implement held vertically; fourth, a round gouging in an applied ball or button of clay; fifth, two gougings made with a round or chisel-edged implement held at an angle. The second form of eye, which resembles a grain of coffee, and the fifth form with the double gouging made from the center outward, are found from the northern limits of archaic art in Mexico as far south as Colombia and Venezuela.

The technique of manufacture naturally changes somewhat with the increase in size. There is also reason to believe that the largest hollow figures come from the end of the Archaic Period in Mexico, and especially those that have been found in the state of Jalisco and the territory of Tepic. The eyelids are often rather carefully modeled and sometimes an eyeball is put in between the lids. These and perforated eyes seem to be the latest characters to be developed in the archaic art and it is significant that they are not found over such a wide area as the first five types of eyes given above.

Ancient Customs.

We may gather much of an ethnological nature from the study of these quaint figures. Articles of dress and adornment are shown as well as musical instruments, weapons, etc. Headdresses may consist of fillets, turbans, and objects perched on one side of the head. Noserings and earrings are abundantly represented and in considerable variety. We may be sure that weaving was rather highly developed because many garments such as shirts, skirts, and aprons are painted or incised with geometric designs. Body painting, or tattooing, appears to have been a common usage. Among weapons the _atlatl_, or spear-thrower, was already known and knobby clubs seem to have been popular. Men are shown beating on drums and turtle shells, while women nurse children and carry water. Since the large figures of clay are often found in tombs it is not impossible that they were intended to be portraits of the dead. Many have a startling quality of caricature.

Archaic art is a pretty certain index of the religion then in vogue. There is a notable absence of purposely grotesque or compounded figures representing divinities such as will be found in the later horizons. We miss entirely the characteristic Mexican gods such as Tlaloc and Ehecatl. Dogs are frequently modeled in clay and were apparently developed into a rather special domestic breed. Snakes are sometimes found as a plastic decoration on pottery but there are few signs of serpent worship. We can find no evidence that human sacrifice was practiced. The presence of human figurines in graves has already been mentioned and the suggestion made that some of them may have been intended as portraits of the dead. Nude female figurines in sitting or standing position have an unbroken distribution from Mexico into South America and it is not unlikely that the primitive agriculturists associated them with fertility and used them as amulets to secure good crops. The male figurines may have been votive offerings for success at arms.

Archaic Pottery.

The ordinary pottery of the Archaic Period from Mexico and Central America is heavy and simple in shape. The globular bowl with a constricted neck is a common form as well as wide-mouthed bowls with or without tripod supports. Lugs and handles are very common. When plain, tripods are large, hollow and rounded, with a perforation on the under side, but they are often modified into faces and feet. Many vessels are decorated by the addition of modeled faces enabling us to make a direct connection with the figures in clay already described.

Plate VIII. Two Stages in the Stone Sculptures of Costa Rica. Note that in the first series (_a_) the human body is adapted to the surface of a boulder with the arms, legs, and face in low relief and with eyes, nose, and mouth all protruding, while in the second series (_b_) the limbs are rounded and partly freed from the body. Both are of archaic type but probably not of great age.

In fact the decoration of pottery of this early period is predominantly in relief. Paint is sparingly used and then only in the simplest geometric fashion. There is a general lack of conventionalized motives presenting animals and other natural forms in highly modified ways. In later ages the painted decoration is much concerned with the serpent, but except for a few winding serpents in relief, this motive is not seen on the pottery of the Archaic Period.

Stone Sculptures of the Archaic Period.

The earliest stone sculptures are recognized first by resemblance to the ceramic art just described and second by a quality which they possess of being archaic in an absolute sense. The greater difficulty of working stone as compared with clay and the longer time required in the process makes stone art less subject to caprice than ceramic art. Perhaps the most primitive examples of stone sculpture are boulders rudely carved in a semblance of the human form with features either sunken or in relief. The arms and legs are ordinarily flexed so that the elbows meet over the knees. The eyes and mouths in the most carefully finished pieces protrude, but the face has little or no modeling. Many celts are modified into figures by grooves, and faces are frequently represented on roughly conical or disk-shaped stones.

Plate IX.

We know very little from actual excavations concerning houses of the Archaic Period. It is likely that they were small and impermanent, possibly resembling the modern huts. The pyramidal mound as a foundation for the temple may have been developed towards the end of the Archaic Period. It would be interesting to determine whether adobe moulded into bricks was known at this time, as it was at a later time in the same region, or whether walls were built up out of fresh mud possibly reinforced by slabs of stone.

Extensions of the Archaic Horizon.

The curious objects of ceramic art that we have found deeply buried under the débris of higher civilizations in the Valley of Mexico can be traced far and wide. They are encountered, for the most part, in arid and open country, and since we have every reason to believe that the earliest agriculture was developed under irrigation, it is but natural to find the use of agriculture spreading first into other arid regions. And if there was an association between the fertility of Mother-Earth and little fetishes representing women then these fetishes would spread as part of the agricultural complex.

It now seems possible that the cult of the female figurine reached our Southwestern states on the earliest level of agricultural life. In sites belonging to Basket-Maker III—the archæological level of the first Pueblo pottery—little female fetishes are found and, indeed, are symptomatic of this early culture. They are cruder than anything as yet found in Mexico, but not necessarily older. With them occurs a primitive maize doubtless introduced from the south.

In the Isthmian region, on the other side of the Mexican and Central American cradle of New World agricultural civilization, there are small figurines quite similar to the archaic figurines of Mexico and Salvador as regards pose and bodily proportions. These are mostly on the level of the first Mayan civilization even in cases where the coffee-grain eye is used. Around the Nicaraguan lakes the figurines of nude females were cast in moulds, a device entirely unknown on the Archaic Horizon in Mexico. In the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica the figurines are skilfully modeled with painted designs in black on a dark brilliant red, which may represent tattooing. In the Chiriqui Province of Panama the figurines belong in a ceramic group characterized by the use of highly conventionalized alligators or crocodiles. It has already been stated that designs of the Archaic Horizon in Mexico are either geometric or naïvely realistic. There is another matter that deserves attention: some of these southern types of the female fetish occur in distinctly humid lands and this, by itself, is a strong argument against great antiquity.

The Isthmian female fetish must have been implanted on the Archaic Horizon even though the present examples are mostly from post-archaic times. Perhaps future archæological investigation will reveal early stations of a purely archaic type in desert parts of Costa Rica and Panama. Till then a controlling fact is that Mayan religious art avoids all references to sex and cannot, therefore, possibly be held responsible for the culture trait of the female fetish. But this fetish does agree with a pre-Mayan concept, as we have seen.

Plate X. Widely Distributed Female Figurines:

The ancient gold work of Costa Rica and Panama also reflects the technique of archaic art, although most of it, to judge by the religious significance of many of the subjects and designs, was made long after the Archaic Period. Just as the pottery figurines were built up by the addition of ribbons and buttons of clay to a generalized form so the patterns for gold castings were made by adding details in rolled wax or resin to a simple underlying form of the same material.

In Colombia and Venezuela archaic art is common in arid and mountainous territory. Local developments confuse the issue of time. Various cultural successions took place here, the Quimbaya, Sinu, and Tairona Indians having developed civilizations with possible Mayan affiliations in some features. The archaic figurines of Colombia are decorated with designs made by the process of negative painting through the medium of wax. This process is pretty generally distributed from central Mexico to northern Peru. The indications are that it was invented long before the rise of the Mayas, and once invented remained popular.

As regards Venezuela the figurines of men and women from the Eastern Andes are often strikingly similar to those of Mexico, especially in such matters as eyes made by double gougings. As a rule, these figurines are painted. Around Lake Valencia they are made without paint, but in combination with pottery designs showing the beginnings of conventionalization. Here there is added the circumstance that wild Carib tribes, coming down the Orinoco, drove the earlier inhabitants out over the West Indies. This flight must have taken place centuries before the coming of the Spaniards.

The archæology of the lower Amazon is best known from the remains found on the Island of Marajo where female figurines exhibit close similarity in pose to specimens from Venezuela and Mexico. This culture of Marajo seems to have been disrupted before the coming of Europeans. But it may be significant that crude fetishes representing women are used at the present time by tribes on the margins of the old Amazonian culture area. The earliest level at Ancon, Peru, yields ware recalling northern products. Nude females, apparently of somewhat later time, however, are in standing rather than sitting pose. It seems, then, that the trail of dissemination of agriculture and the ancillary arts can be followed across the northern part of South America and southward along the Andes to Peru. The greatest similarities must be sought in the oldest objects and some leeway granted in the case of marginal survivals.

It is proper to speak of agriculture, pottery-making, and weaving as the great civilizing complex. Few inventions could break down the ordinary boundaries of language and environment, as these had done. Yet, after the discovery of America, the horse, introduced by the Spaniards, spread rapidly through native tribes, modifying their lives greatly. It is capable of demonstration that with the horse went two types of saddle—the pack saddle and the riding saddle. Similarly in the first rapid spread of agriculture went pots and woven garments.

Two maps of the New World are given herewith: the first showing the extent of the Archaic Horizon and the second the final distribution of pottery among the American Indians and the final distribution of agriculture. The agricultural area is subdivided according to, first, the arid land type where irrigation is generally practised; second, the humid land type; and third, the temperate land type. The first type of agriculture appears to be the earliest and the range coincides, for the most part, with the range of the archaic pottery art.

Summary.

In concluding this section let us sum up the general facts of ancient American history as these appear in relation to the archæological evidences of the Archaic Horizon.

I. Pre-Archaic Horizon

The peopling of the New World from Asia by tribes on the nomadic plane of culture.

II. The Archaic Horizon

Invention and primary dissemination of agriculture, together with pottery-making and loom-weaving. Homogeneous culture with undeveloped religion and unsymbolic art adjusted to arid tropics.

III. Post-Archaic Horizon

Specialized cultures in North, Central, and South America dependent upon agriculture. Strong local developments in esthetic arts, religious ideas, and social institutions. Agriculture extended to humid tropical and temperate regions.

Plate XI.

Plate XII.

We will now make an effort to analyze still further the historical levels in the Post-Archaic Horizon.

Plate XIII.