Understanding Ancient Mesoamerican Art Starting at the end of the eighteenth century and continuing up to the present, explorers have searched for the ruins of ancient Mesoamerica, a region that includes Central America and central and southern Mexico. With the progress of time, archaeologists have unearthed civilizations increasingly remote in age. It is as if with each new century in the modern era an earlier stratum of antiquity has been revealed. Nineteenth-century explorers, particularly John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, came upon Maya cities in the jungle, as well as evidence of other Classic cultures. Twentieth-century research revealed a much earlier high civilization, the Olmec. It now scarcely seems possible that the frontiers of early Mesoamerican civilization can be pushed back any further, although new work—such as in Oaxaca, southern Mexico—will continue to fill in details of the picture. According to paragraph 1, which of the following best describes the progress made in the search for ruins of ancient Mesoamerica? •A.The oldest remains were discovered immediately after Columbusarrived, and later findings correspond to more recent ruins.•B.From the late eighteenth century through the twentieth century,increasingly older remains were found.•C.All of the archaeological work was completed in the twentieth century.•D.Technological developments made it progressively easier forexplorers to discover Mayan cities in the jungle.Paragraph 1 supports which of the following statements about the revealing of early Mesoamerican civilization? •A.The Maya and Olmec civilizations were discovered by explorers atapproximately the same time.•B.Most of our understanding of Mesoamerican civilization comes fromdiscoveries made in the twentieth century.•C.The discoveries made at Oaxaca in southern Mexico show that theOlmec civilization had its origins there.•D.Evidence still to be found in Oaxaca, Mexico, is likely to provideadditional information about the high civilization of early Mesoamerica.The process of discovery often shapes what we know about the history of Mesoamerican art. New finds are just as often made accidentally as intentionally. [▇] In 1971 workers installing sound and light equipment under the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan stumbled upon a remarkable cave that has since been interpreted by some scholars as a royal burial chamber. [▇] Archaeology has its own fashions too: the isolation of new sites may be the prime goal in one decade and the excavation of pyramids the focus in the next. In a third decade, outlying structures rather than principal buildings may absorb archaeologists’ energies. [ ▇ ] Nor should one forget that excavators are vulnerable to local interests. [▇] At one point, reconstruction of pyramids to attract tourism may be desired; at another, archaeologists may be precluded from working at what ha...
