Ignacio Bernal: A History of Mexican Archaeology. The Vanished Civilizations of Middle America

Professor bernal recounts the story of a centuries-long bid to unravel the mystery presented by the precolumbian peoples of mexico. Who were they? How did they live? And what was the secret of their remarkable achievements? He examines anew the records of their spanish conquerors and the accounts of early european travellers and antiquaries who investigated the enigmatic monuments the indians left to posterity. He shows, further, how the interpretation of these monuments by later investigators has been rendered all the more difficult by the – often fanciful – speculations of their predecessors, the inaccessibility of the sites and the damage inflicted by the conquistadors and missionaries, who considered such edifices fit only for destruction. It was not until towards the end of the nineteenth century that work was done by the 'new' archaeologists – men like john lloyd stephens, eduard seler, alfred p. Maudslay – and by institutions such as the peabody museum of harvard university, which led to more reliable assessment of the data available, a process which acquired true scientific status with the application of stratigraphical analysis. Once the national aspirations of mexican archaeologists were allowed full rein in a field hitherto exploited by outsiders they made significant contributions to the modern methods of examination. For, in the words of the author, 'mexican archaeology is for the foreigner no more than an academic exercise in the satisfaction of intellectual curiosity. But it is part of the mexican's past, part of his very life.'