ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some of the intellectual developments that moved archaeology away from simplistic ideas of human progress in prehistoric times. Furthermore, it was also easy to argue, as most archaeologists of the day did, that ancient Native American societies had not changed one iota since the earliest times. In 1915, Alfred Kidder embarked on the most important work of his career. Edward Thompson is remembered as the first archaeologist to explore Chichn Itz. As his Cenote investigations drew to a close, it became clear that there were few artifacts in Mexico to show for the work. He developed the first culture-historical sequence for the southern coast, and then moved to the North Coast, where he investigated Moche and Chimu sites. Modern prehistoric archaeology was born in Scandinavia, with the work of Oscar Montelius, who developed the first culture-historical framework for prehistoric Europe in the 1880s and 1890s.
