Aztecan Influence in Central America.
The influence from the late Mexican cultures can be traced far to the south. Decorative motives that show affiliations to those of the Aztecs and their immediate predecessors are found as far south as Costa Rica but the strain is thin and not to be compared with the evidences of culture connection over wide territories that are found on earlier horizons. There was clearly a brisk trade in gold in Aztecan times between the Isthmus of Panama and Mexico.
After the breakdown of the civilization of the humid lands of Central America, following the Mayan cataclysm, the abandoned regions appear to have been repopulated by a stream of tribes from South America who swept up the coast of the Caribbean Sea and across the peninsula of Yucatan, as far as Tehuantepec. There was also a strong northern movement of tribes along the Pacific Coast seen most clearly in the distribution of languages belonging to the Chiapanecan or Chorotegan stock. The early historic records show the Mazateca in transit from their old home in Costa Rica to their new one in northern Oaxaca. Cortez in 1526 found these Indians in Yucatan.