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Literary Review
The Archaeology and Pottery of Nazca, Peru: Alfred L. Kroeber's 1926 Expedition
By Alfred L. Kroeber and Donald Collier
Edited by Patrick H. Carmichael with an afterword by Katharina J. Schreiber
Publisher: Sage Publications in cooperation with The Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois
Review by Marcia Koth de Paredes

This is basically a field report of a 1926 archaeological excavation and site survey in Nazca sponsored by the Chicago Field Museum under the leadership of Alfred L. Kroeber. The report (including information on collaboration with Julio C. Tello and other Peruvian archaeologists, travel, field work, and interviews) brings to life the way archaeologists worked in Peru in the formative and very productive years of the 1920s. There are many beautiful drawings and color plates for those with special interest in Nazca ceramics and construction as well as excellent site maps of the Nazca area.

The report provides brief introductions to the areas and sites, descriptions of the excavations and types of constructions found, and proposals about the succession of phases of Nazca culture. Most of the report provides description and analysis of the beautiful painted pottery of Nazca, complete with over 400 photographs and drawings of objects uncovered in the excavations. There are also even some of the earliest photographs of the famous Nazca lines.

Alfred Lewis Kroeber (1876-1960) taught at the University of California, Berkeley and was a central figure in archaeology throughout his career. He was especially influential in the discipline because of his data collection and reporting methods. The publication of the present book represents an excellent example of the methodologies that he helped develop. Donald Collier (1911-1995) was Curator of Middle and South American Archaeology and Ethnography until his retirement in 1991. He also served as Chief Curator of Anthropology between 1964 and 1970 at the Field Museum in Chicago and was a founding member of the Council on Museum Anthropology. Donald Collier had greatly advanced the editing of the report by the time of his death in 1995. His son, political scientist David Collier, has also spent a considerable amount of time in Peru.

Patrick H. Carmichael, while still a graduate student, met Collier in 1986 and received his help to spend several months in Chicago studying the collections described in the book. Collaboration continued between the two with later contributions by Katharina Schreiber. She puts the work into the context of contemporary Nazca studies, including a reassessment of the sites discovered in the 1926 expedition. Carmichael finished the editing work and the book was finally published in 1998. The book exemplifies the patience and persistence required of scholars to inform about their work.

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