Manuel Gamio

[4] At age 19 he left his studies to work on a family rubber plantation, where the states of Oaxaca, Veracruz and Puebla join.

He performed field work at various places in the Valley of Mexico, including Copilco, Cuicuilco and the Templo Mayor (all in the Distrito Federal); Chalchihuites, Zacatecas; Yucatán; Ecuador and Miraflores, Guatemala.

Earlier, in 1916, he had published the important book Forjando patria: pro nacionalismo (Mexico City: Libreria de Porrúa Hermanos) (Forging a Fatherland), a treatise on cultural assimilation of indigenous Mexicans into the racially mixed society of the country.

Other works in Spanish include Hacia un México nuevo (1935) and Consideraciones sobre el problema del indigenismo (1948).

Due to the similarity of pottery from Guatemala and central Mexico, Gamio believed the latter area to be the original source of Maya civilization.

[7] Gamio's publications on Mexico's indigenous was important for "reinstating Anahuac as the glorious foundation of Mexican history and culture.

[10] He returned to Mexico in 1930, where he held various government positions, conducted sociological and applied anthropological investigations, and directed the Inter-American Indian Institute from its foundation in 1942 until his death in 1960.