Excavations at La Venta Tabasco, 1955

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Through the generosity of the National Geographic Society, funds were made available to undertake the project. Melvin M. Payne, senior assistant secretary of the National Geographic Society, has been, from the beginning of the work through the completion of this report, most helpful, and a large measure Of credit must go to him. The University of California and the Smithsonian Institution con tributed to the project, chiefly in the form of scientific personnel and equipment. We were able to work at La Venta from mid-january to the latter part of May 1955. The actual excavations were carried on from the beginning Of February to mid-may; the initial 2 or 3 weeks were devoted to building camp and clearing the jungle from the part of the site we intended to work in; the last couple of weeks were devoted to filling in our excavations and to breaking camp. Technical personnel included, in addition to Drucker and Heizer, who were in charge of operations, Ing. Eduardo Contreras, assistant archeologist of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, and Robert J. Squier, research assistant in archeology, Uni versity of California.