From the last decades of the nineteenth century until the First World War, the
interest in the American Great Civilizations in the US would proceed un-
matched in Europe. This was parallel to the growing imperialist component of
American nationalism, especially after the Spanish-American war of 1898
that resulted in the US appropriation of Puerto Rico and the independence
of Cuba. US activities related to Latin American antiquities grew at this time.
In the 1880s the Peabody Museum of Harvard University undertook large-
scale excavations in Copa ́n (Honduras) and published on Latin American—
especially Mesoamerican—archaeology in its publication series (Bernal 1980:
148, 154). These publications served as models to follow. Mexican archae-
ology was given special treatment in theAmerican Anthropologistjournal,
whoseWrst issue saw light in 1888. A more modest contribution came from
the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago in the last years of the nineteenth
century (Bernal 1980: 149, 154). From 1904 the Museum of the University of
Pennsylvania began to publish on Mesoamerican archaeology, and from 1914
the Carnegie Institution from Washington DC began organizing excavations
in the Mayan area (Bernal 1980: 173). American universities and museums
also sent archaeologists to the Andean area. Adolph Bandelier’s excavations,
for example, were paid for by the American Museum of Natural History
(Patterson 1995b: 48), whereas Phoebe Hearst personally subsidized Max
Uhle through the University of California when German and Pennsylvanian
money ceased after 1895.
It may perhaps be necessary here to point out that interest in Latin
American antiquities in Spain was almost non-existent. SigniWcantly, there
was no teaching on American antiquities in the Spanish School of Diplomacy,
where archaeology was taught in Spain from 1856. Most of the American
collections amassed during the colonial period that had remained in Spain
were still in the hands of the Spanish monarchy (Chapter 2), although the
National Archaeological Museum created in 1867 had some in their displays.
There were a few exceptions in this lack of concern towards the scientiWcstudy
of Latin America. One of these was the Spanish scientiWc expedition to the
PaciWc and Central and South America organized by the Museum of Natural
Sciences of Madrid between 1862 and 1865. Marcos Jime ́nez de la Espada
y Evangelista (1831–98), a polymath who participated in it, would later publish
on the antiquities in Peru (1879) and elsewhere (Lo ́pez-Oco ́n Cabrera & Pe ́rez-
Montes Salmero ́n 2000; Pasamar Alzuria & Peiro ́Martı ́n 2002: 334). He was also
amemberoftheUnio ́n Ibero-Americana de Madrid (Ibero-American Union
of Madrid), a movement founded in 1884 that aimed at creating a Spanish–
Portuguese–French front to oppose British interests in America that had been
stimulated and inXuenced by the weakness shown by the Spanish delegates at
the Berlin Conference of 1884–5 (Rodrı ́guez Esteban 1998). It was in this context
180 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism