Why I Dig Aztec Kitchen Trash

While Most Archaeologists Hunt for Pyramids and Palaces, I’m Fascinated by the Detritus of Ordinary Life

For years I was too embarrassed to admit how I first got interested in the Aztecs and Mayas. Now, as an archaeologist who has directed excavations at Aztec sites for decades, I can come clean. In college, I read a book of fringe historical ideas claiming that when the lost civilization of Atlantis sank into the sea, its people set off in boats, made it to Mexico, and gave birth to the ancestors of Aztecs and Mayans. I thought this was the coolest tale. I dropped my majors in music …