He also played an important part in the early excavations under Matthew Stirling of the Smithsonian of the Olmec culture in Mexico, especially the site of La Venta.
[2] Born in Chicago on January 13, 1911, he began his college career studying animal husbandry at the University of Colorado before switching to Liberal arts and archaeology.
He then joined the Smithsonian but in 1948 he was ordered to active duty by the US Navy Reserve as anthropologist to the American occupation administration for Micronesia, with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, serving until 1952.
From 1955–66 he largely gave up academic work and farmed in Mexico, marrying and having two children.
[4] “One of the best-kept secrets about Philip Drucker is that his adventures as a rancher in southern Veracruz are wonderfully told in the 1969 book Tropical Frontier, which he wrote and published under the pseudonym Paul Record.” [5]