MEXICAN EXCAVATIONS

Rising and falling in volume with the vagaries of the breeze came the lively strains of stringed music, interspersed with the high-pitched wail of falsetto voices. It was the first night of our return to camp at Tres Zapotes in southeastern Mexico and the huapango was in full swing at the village a mile away.

It was good to be back again at the familiar scene. The brilliant moonlight filtering between the vertical palm-ribbed walls of our thatched house cut slices through our mosquito nets as though they were loaves of bread. Unseen, from a tree beside the house, a goat-sucker, made amorous by the moonlight, sent out at regular intervals his mournful query, "Who are you?" and from a distance came the faint reply, "Who are you?"

It had been a long day. Early in the morning we had awakened in our favorite little hotel in Tlacotalpan. Our baggage had been stowed on Ricardo's big dugout launch and we had wound our tortuous way through a network of narrow channels. In the afternoon we had transferred our equipment to a train of mules and ridden over the muddy trail to Tres Zapotes.

Here our hearts were warmed by the greetings from our friends of last year. The huapango, characteristic folk dance of Veracruz State, had been arranged as a welcome in our honor, and the evening had been spent in renewing old acquaintances and listening to the news. Raman had a new baby, a son. Rafaela had been married. Aurelio had built a new house for himself and his bride.

Pleading weariness at last, the guests of honor left the dance and returned to the peace and quiet of our camp by the Colossal Head which we had unearthed the year before. The dance, we knew, the night being so favorable, would continue until dawn. Thus we fell asleep with the feeling that both Nature and man had given us an auspicious beginning for our second season of work.

In the morning we arose early to view our surroundings by daylight and were pleased to find the camp in as good condition as we had left it a year ago. Dr. Philip Drucker had been sent in advance to put the camp into shape and to make the necessary arrangements. We expected Mr. M. A. Carriker and Richard Stewart, the National Geographic photographer, to arrive in a few days. Mr. Carriker was coming to continue the ornithological collecting begun last season by Dr. Alexander Wetmore.

We were filled with the enthusiasm that is always present during the early days of a new dig. Would we find anything this year to compare in interest with the stela we had discovered the previous January, a slab which bears a date equivalent to November 4, 291 B. C., and which is 200 years older than any work of man previously dated in America? Would we discover anything as striking as our Colossal Head?

Our program provided that we were to continue at Tres Zapotes until the end of April, working out the chronology of the stratified deposits of pottery in the kitchen middens, or refuse heaps.

In addition, we expected to make a few exploratory trips. The southern part of the State of Veracruz and the neighboring territory…"