gems, jade, jadeite, fei cui, Mesoamerica, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Mayans, Olmecs, Aztecs, archaeology, history, archaeogemology

This is a study of Mesoamerica—Mesoamerica as a whole. Like other great civilizations, it possesses its own history, and like other successful epics it is composed of a number of episodes, a climax, and an ending. We know a great deal about the last scene, and vast chapters have been written about the earlier episodes, but a complete study of its beginnings has never appeared. Hence the present history—fraught with perils since it is an attempt to gather all important (but isolated) data into a coherent whole; dangerous since the explorer is not only drawing a map of newly discovered islands but is forced to chart unknown seas. Archaeological exploration in Mesoamerica, together with other anthropological studies, is, at best, an incomplete map of a number of islands, large and small, in an uncharted ocean. At times, in fact, these isles can hardly be called islands; they seem to be no more than poorly illuminated rocks, jutting out from the depths of a murky sea—the past. Let us trust that there will be a minimum of errors in our factual material. My sources have been basically the reports of field archaeologists. Nevertheless, as Alfred Kroeber said, “No one can really examine all the evidence on any major problem; at least not at first hand. This puts us in a nice fix when, as so often happens, we claim to have reached valid conclusions after having examined and weighed ‘all the evidence.’ I would rather publish as fast as I can feel reasonably sure of my material, even at the risk of errors and uncertainties, so that it will be out where others can shoot at it. Nothing is worth much in any profession until it is published.”