first modern archaeological appraisal of the country as a whole—Archaeological Regions of Colombia: A Ceramic Survey.

In 1945 the Archaeological Service merged with the Ethnological Institute, a move considered necessary to end the “divorce” between archaeology and ethnology. At the time members of the institute included the German geographer Ernesto Guhl and the Russian-born German historian Juan Friede, anticipating interdisciplinarity change thirty years before it was advertised as the great innovation of archaeological studies in the 1980s. Between 1946 and 1947, in a move to spread the benefit of its activities to at least the western and most populated portion of the country, the institute created a number of local branches and encouraged the formation of regional museums. As a result of this policy the Ethnological Institute of the Department of Magdalena was founded in the town of Santa Marta, under the direction of Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff. The Atlántico branch in Barranquilla was directed by Carlos Angulo Valdés, whose lifelong interest has been the archaeology of the Caribbean lowlands. Another branch in Popayán was set up as a joint venture with the University of Cauca, where Henry Lehmann was establishing a museum. The Antioquia branch, with its headquarters in Medellín, had links with the university department, and a museum was started through the acquisition of the highly important private collection formed by Leocadio María Arango. This branch was directed by Graciliano Arcila Vélez, whose main interests lay in the Urabá region. On the outskirts of the town of Sogamoso, a branch with a museum was set up inside an archaeological park on the proposed location of the Sun Temple of the Muisca. This branch was directed by Eliécer Silva Célis, who made this enterprise his lifelong interest.

By 1947 the institute administered a number of archaeological parks—San Agustín, Tierradentro, Facatativá (near Bogotá), Sogamoso—and was starting another one in Pueblito. The Cauca branch had begun to train researchers, and there were ambitious plans for further branches in the Chocó and Nariño regions. In 1948, however, the liberal reforms, although by now much attenuated, paradoxically induced a violent backlash by the extreme political right. The populist liberal presidential candidate was assassinated, and his working-class supporters reacted by rioting. Colombia was plunged into another civil war, which climaxed in a harsh, conservative regime. Although there was respite after “pacification” during the military dictatorship, the causes and embers of the backlash survived and very slowly evolved into internal guerrilla warfare. There were no casualties among archaeologists, and none of the institutes or museums or libraries suffered from extensive fire or pillage, but something barely definable was irretrievably lost—the sense of being part of a group with an adventurous mission. Occasional harassment of intellectuals became part of the political climate of the times, and keeping a low profile was the safest position. Some managed to escape by enrolling in postgraduate courses in the United States or in Europe; others found themselves a niche away from the turmoil. Through isolation, archaeologists managed to survive unscathed, but the isolation persisted when it was no longer a political necessity. Perhaps this fact explains both the petty bickering that tainted academic exchanges and the provincialism that has warped the outlook of some scholars.

By 1953 the Ethnological Institute had shed some of its parks and branches and was reorganized (still within the Ministry of Education) as the Colombian Institute of Anthropology (ICAN). Its two periodical publications were merged into the Revista Colombiana de Antropología [Colombian Revew of Anthropology]. The institute lapsed into relative obscurity. It managed to continue to train anthropologists, many of whom were medical doctors, architects, lawyers, and other professionals for whom anthropology was a second career; very few of these individuals would work in the field on a full-time basis. Nevertheless, the 1950s were not without some success—and the foundations for the prosperity of the next decades were laid down. Many titles in history and related subjects, essential reading for archaeologists today, were printed or reprinted at this time (and alas, never again), some by the Collection of the Presidency of the Republic.