but it was recolonized by farmers from the central Andean region who had been displaced by the civil war of the 1950s. Gilberto Cadavid and Luisa Fernanda Herrera de Turbay documented 200 sites. The last of these, located in the Buritaca River basin, was the site of a Tairona town with an elaborate stone infrastructure that had been plundered by tomb looters. However, due to its inaccesibility (hence the nickname Ciudad Perdida, or Lost City), the site was still relatively well preserved. The ICAN plunged into the adventure of restoring it (under the direction of Gilberto Cadavid and Ana María Groot) at enormous cost, since the work necessitated a large staff dependent on supplies delivered by helicopter. Undoubtedly a site of remarkable beauty and charm, with incalculable historical and didactic importance, its preservation since 1976 as another archaeological park, with a permanent staff supported under the same costly conditions, has drained most of the funds the ICAN received for its Archaeological Division.

There was a considerable influx of foreign scholars into Colombia due to events related to World War II and its aftermath. Many were doctoral aspirants carrying out fieldwork for their theses and were generally backed by grants. Most returned to their countries of origin, and only a few remained in Colombia. Among these were Marianne Cardale Schrimpff, who arrived to study textile techniques of contemporary Indian groups as a means to understand the production of archaeological ones, and Ann Osborn, whose ethno-archaeological studies among the Uwa (Tunebo) Indians are remarkable. Other scholars observed the minimum etiquette and remained in contact with local colleagues, among them Karen Bruhns after her research in the middle Cauca Valley. Some, such as Henning Bischoff, who carried out research in the Caribbean lowlands, returned for further periods of fieldwork. Unfortunately, a number of opportunists who had been welcomed and given support then went away and forgot the obligations incurred—such as sending copies of their reports. Opinion is divided about the passing of Law 626, another of Soto’s feats. It established the rule that those in charge of foreign research projects should share a percentage of their funds with local scholars. This law frightened off a number of bona fide scholars, and when it was applied too literally, it filled the ICAN’s storage space with junk, yet it also enabled a number of students to be part of an international research project in which they could acquire field and laboratory experience.

Foreign scholars were not the only ones who provided this invaluable service. Gonzalo Correal (by now a member of the teaching staff of the Department of Anthropology at the National University), in spite of very modest funding, carried out many of his excavations at early hunter-gatherer sites with his students and made a point of training them in lithic analysis and bone identification. Among those students whose names were well known by the 1990s, Gerardo Ardila stands out for his attempts at interpreting very early societies through fieldwork among the Makú (a group of hunter-gatherers of the Guaviare River forest, who remained isolated until very recently).

Over the following decades the ICAN suffered various ups and downs, and it gradually shed archaeologists, losing prominence in research. At the same time the FIAN and several regional universities and institutions gained strength. However, legislation from as far back as 1963 ensured that the ICAN would retain an important role in Colombian archaeology. By law this institute had the power to grant or deny permission for archaeological excavations, and although this rule did not deter commercial grave diggers, it could hardly be ignored by bona fide excavators. ICAN staffers were was also obliged to visit the site of any accidental finds of pre-Columbian objects made in the course of public works and to instruct local authorities to halt work if necessary and to salvage heritage sites or objects. This role was maintained against the inclinations of some of the directors, who were faced with diminishing budgets and rapid increases in emergency archaeology of all kinds, as well as the burden of policymaking and innumerable other administrative duties. Miriam Jimeno’s two terms as director (from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s) were exceptional in that the institution enacted a policy of fortifying the ICAN and accepting new challenges.