New York ; London: The Century Co, 1931, 1931. Stated First Printing. x, 341 pages, 31 unnumbered leaves of plates: illustrations, 1 map; 29 cm. Maps on lining papers./ "First printing."/ Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-334) and index. Modest closed tear and chip to front free enfpaper; else tight and clean,. Overall verry good(-) thus. Hardcover.
Worthwhile b&w plates. Gregory Mason (1889–1968) was an American journalist turned explorer and anthropologist. In 1926 he organized the Mason–Spinden expedition along the little-known east coast of Yucatán and Quintana Roo with the Maya scholar Herbert J. Spinden. Its finds were reported in the press and in his Silver Cities of Yucatan (1927). He later earned a doctorate in anthropology and taught at New York University. Here, writing for a general audience, he surveys the civilizations of the Americas before 1492: the Maya, Aztec, and Inca, and the peoples of North America. He argues that their achievements in agriculture, astronomy, architecture, and government stood comparison with those of the Old World. The European “discovery” was therefore the late arrival of one civilization among many, a view that put him ahead of much popular opinion of his day. Written between the field archaeology of the 1920s and the academic career that followed, it is a characteristic interwar attempt to make the American past part of world history rather than a prelude to the conquesAntiquities. Civilization. Prehistoric peoples. Kultur Präkolumbische Zeit Geographic: America -- Civilization. America -- Antiquities. Amérique -- Civilisation. Amérique -- Antiquités.
