Excerpt from The Archaeological Journal, 1892, Vol. 49
The term "pre-historic," as used in relation to the human races and remains in the New World is applied under conditions widely different from those which we usually associate with it in the Old. If we speak of a "Stone Age" in Mexico or Central America, we are dealing with a period which, so far as we can assign any limit to it, runs far down into the Christian Era, and thus overlaps that which in Europe is not only historical but comparatively recent. On the other hand, if we attempt to trace it backward, there is no reason to put any other limitations upon it than those which we gather from similar observations in the Eastern Hemisphere. If a Stone Period is characterised by the use of stone implements in the apparent absence of any art in metal, we find such a period extending practically down to the age of the Spanish Conquest; and yet the observations of Dr. Hamy, quoted by Lucian Biart in his History of the Aztecs, indicate that man was contemporary in Central America with the Mastodon; and that there is no reason to assume any interruption in his descent from those ages.
My purpose in these notes is to endeavour to point out the lines upon which a distinction may be sought for between actually historic stonework in Mexico and that which can only be regarded as pre-historic.
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