Page:The American Indian.djvu/147

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ARCHITECTURE
103

Inca domain we find buildings upon them. In fact, their general absence in Old Peru is accounted for by the rocky nature of the country, which affords sites of natural elevation to which buildings were frequently adjusted by terraces.[1] It may be of interest to note that the pyramid mound both for burial and building sites extends up into the Mississippi

Fig. 52. Elevations and Ground-plans of the Ruin Known as Santa Rosa Xlabpak, Yucatan. Spinden, 1913. I


Valley as far as the famous Cahokia of Illinois, and that this distribution is continuous with the general mound area of the upper valley. In other words, the occurrence of mounds of this type has a generally continuous distribution from the Great Lakes of the North to the coast of Old Peru of the South. Throughout, they are most numerous in level districts.

The northern limits of building attributed to the Nahua are on the Gulf Coast about the 24° of latitude, or in striking distance of the Rio Grande. Though all the later northern buildings are far less preserved than those of the older Maya,

  1. Joyce, 1912. I.