Santa Lucia Cozumalhualpa.
The zonal distribution of rain forests in southern Mexico and Central America is especially important, as has been pointed out, in connection with the spread of Mayan-type civilizations. The Olmeca and Totonacs who were among the first to feel the cultural effects of the Mayan ascendency occupied lands of heavy precipitation. The Zapotecan and Mixtecan areas were partly wet and partly dry. The Toltecs seem originally to have been desert dwellers but they extended their conquests over tribes living in the humid tropics and made much of cacao, rubber, copal, etc., obtained by trade and tribute from such subject peoples.
Along the Pacific coast below the Isthmus of Tehuantepec lies a rain belt containing ruined cities which flourished between 1000 to 1300 A. D., or on the historical level of the Toltec expansion. The sculptural art at these sites resembles the works attributed to the Olmecs in Tabasco and Vera Cruz on the one hand and to the works of the Chorotega of lower Central America on the other. One such ruin is Quiengola near the modern city of Tehuantepec, another occupies a ridge above Tonalá and there is a cluster of sites in the environs of Santa Lucia Cozumalhualpa in southern Guatemala, extending into western Salvador.
Whether or not the sculptures of Santa Lucia Cozumalhualpa are to be credited to the Pipil, a Mexican tribe, is far from certain, but human sacrifice and other Toltec religious ideas are plainly presented. We find here elaborate speech scrolls comparable to those of Xochicalco and the Toltec work at Chichen Itza. Also there is evidence of the ceremonial importance of cacao in this region, the god of this economic plant being pictured in the form of a jaguar.
A peculiar type of pottery centered in southern Guatemala and western Salvador from which region it was distributed far and wide by trade. Although a few examples of this ware are found at Copan it is clear from the designs that most of the pieces belong to a time subsequent to the abandonment of this Mayan city. The ware has a semi-glaze which is the result of lead in the clay. Because paint could not be applied to this ware, the esthetic idea of shape was allowed to develop itself without hindrance. This pottery is now referred to as plumbate ware.