In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall & the Search for Mexico’s Ancient Civilizations

Grindle (Bureaucrats, Politicians, and Peasants in Mexico), a professor of international development at Harvard, delivers an insightful and accessible biography of Zelia Nuttall (1857–1933), a pioneer in scholarly research on the ancient civilizations of Mexico. A protégé of renowned Harvard anthropologist Frederic Putnam, Nuttall worked as an anthropologist when very few women were employed in the field. An astute and intrepid researcher, she was the first person to accurately decipher the Aztec calendar stone; wrote a seminal study of the terra-cotta heads of Teotihuacán; and decoded the Codex Nuttall, a rare pre-Columbian manuscript that revealed much about early Mesoamerican art, literature, and history. Nuttall and her contemporaries created exhibits for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and were instrumental in the development of modern museums in Pennsylvania and California, ushering in a new era of cultural studies and appreciation. Despite her extensive travels, Nuttall’s lifelong love for Mexico never waned, and she eventually settled there and developed an expertise in the native plants of ancient Mexico. Grindle combines a rousing tale of archaeological discovery with an incisive description of how institutional marginalization occurs, tracing how Nuttall’s legacy was ignored by subsequent generations of anthropologists. This enjoyable account restores to prominence an influential figure in her field. (Nov.)