is important to note that even through there had been little research in Mesoamerica concerning preceramic/presedentary cultural horizons, the Mexican scholar Pablo Martínez del Río published an important study on the origins of man in the Americas in 1936.

One of the best summaries of Mexican archaeology during this period was published by J.E.S. Thompson in 1933. Thompson did some of his most important Maya fieldwork during the 1930s, mainly in Belize but also in Quintana Roo, Campeche, and Yucatán, and he made a key contribution (Thompson 1935) in correcting the correlation between the Maya and European calendars, a correlation that is still used today.

Mexican government projects in the Maya lowlands included the architectural and iconographic studies of Miguel Angel Fernandez at Chichén Itzá in 1935, at Tulum in 1938, and at palenque and Acanceh, also in 1938. The report on Acanceh is especially significant because of the discovery of Teotihuacán-style architecture in northern Yucatán. Wilfredo Du Solier (1938), also of the Department of Pre-Hispanic Monuments, produced an excellent ceramic sequence for the Totonac center of El Tajin in north-central Veracruz and subsequently excavated a series of cities of the Huasteca people on the northeastern frontier of Mesoamerica. Joaquin Meade was another investigator active in the Huasteca during the 1930s and 1940s.

In 1937, a project started in the Tuxtlas mountains of southern Veracruz under the direction of Juan Valenzuela and Karl Rubbert, whose investigations revealed evidence of long-distance commercial systems during the early classic period (a.d. 300–600) linked with the expansion of the Teotihuacán state. At the site of Matacapan, investigators identified several Teotihuacán-style buildings that may have been used by merchants from that great highland city.

During the final part of the 1930s, a number of important programs began on the west coast of Mexico, such as the work of Isabel Kelly (1938) and G.F. Ekholm (1942) in Sinaloa. The basic goal of both archaeologists was to establish regional chronologies based on ceramic sequences.

Some historical surveys (Bernal 1979; Willey and Sabloff 1974) have observed that Mexican archaeology before 1940 was largely centered on the definition of ceramic sequences and relative chronologies for specific sites and regions. Most research concentrated on three areas: the central Mexican highlands (especially the basin of Mexico), the Maya lowlands, and Oaxaca. In general, the largest unit of investigation was a specific ruin or “site,” and although stratigraphic excavations were common, they were mainly confined to relatively small test pits or trenches. Throughout most of the Americas during this period, many archaeological reports were essentially what gordon willey and Jeremy Sabloff (1974) call “potsherd chronicles.” These were cultural reconstructions limited chiefly to descriptions of artifact types and the definition of supposedly related typologies, and there was not much effort to obtain a global vision concerning other aspects of ancient cultures.

Despite this generalized pattern in archaeology before 1940, there were some notable exceptions, such as Gamio’s project in the Teotihuacán Valley, the investigations of Seler throughout Mesoamerica, and those of Linne in the central highlands. Although the pre-1940 concentration on chronologies and the definition of cultural sequences seem to contemporary archaeologists to constitute very limited goals, these objectives were fundamental during this period because without the chronological ordering of different cultures, no more anthropological archaeology would have been possible in subsequent periods. The pre-1940 investigations constituted an essential initial stage for obtaining preliminary knowledge concerning the archaeology of Mexico’s numerous regions, many of which had a pre-Hispanic past that was previously almost unknown.

Another important activity during this period involved the Mexican “institutional archaeology” tradition of excavating and reconstructing large monumental centers. Some of the best monumental reconstructions ever done date to this period: Gamio’s work at the Ciudadela plaza in Teotihuacán, Marquina’s project at Tenayuca, and the Carnegie Institution program at Chichén Itzá.

Work in maya epigraphy was very successful during this period. The decipherment of Maya