The study in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the earliest history of native Latin Americans falls into two distinct periods. The first, associated with an interest in the ancient Mexican and Peruvian civilizations, can be divided into two stages: the 1920s to the early 1940s, when Soviet scholars first acquainted themselves with antiquities from the region and used them for historical parallels; and the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Soviet historians turned to an analysis of Latin American materials. The second period went through three stages: the first, from the early 1950s to the early 1960s, mainly was dominated by Yury Knorozov, who was engaged in deciphering the language of the Maya, and Rostislav Kinzhalov, who studied their art and culture. During the second stage, the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, more scholars and research institutions undertook studies of the early cultures of Latin America. The thematic range became wider as well, covering—besides Mesoamerica and the central Andean region—the Intermediate region and the Caribbean. The third stage, which started in the late 1970s and continues to the present day, witnesses ethnographers and archaeologists pooling their efforts in studying the region. There were several conferences in which specialists engaged in various fields of Latin American studies participated. Their contacts with foreign colleagues became wider; Soviet archaeologists and ethnologists took part in fieldwork in Latin America. The primary aims today are to introduce Soviet readers to archaeological materials from a number of cultural-historical regions (such as the southern fringes of Mesoamerica, Amazonia, the southern Andes, etc.), to detail Soviet studies of cultural complexes and historical processes in ancient America, and to compare them to the processes that took place in the Old World, with the aim of establishing shared historical “laws” and patterns.

Five seasons of archaeological fieldwork at the Maya lowland site of Rio Azul are summarized. The site is an urban center located on the Rio Azul. The locality was occupied from at least 900 B.C. to ca. A.D. 800. Farming villages gave way ca. 150 B.C. to communities that built large platforms, and the urban center was established about A.D. 200. Rio Azul apparently was conquered by Tikal ca. A.D. 380 and became a frontier city and commercial center. Strong influence from Teotihuacan is indicated. A hiatus in the sixth century A.D. evidently represents a period of civil wars. Rio Azul was reoccupied and then overrun again in the ninth century by northern Maya groups. Once more reoccupied, it was finally abandoned ca. A.D. 880. Evidence for ancient cultural institutions also is summarized.

Stories involving the death of the sun and a subsequent revolt of objects against humans are variants of a common and ancient Native American myth, and it is argued that a number of art works from the Moche culture of the Peruvian north coast depict a variant of this myth. The “Revolt of the Objects” theme is part of a narrative sequence representing an important epic of the late Moche culture that is linked to other Moche art, larger symbolic concepts, and sociopolitical events. Now that simple diffusionistic explanations are no longer applicable, the occurrence of similar themes in myths and art throughout the Americas is a subject that should be reexamined.

Surveys, test pitting, and large-scale excavation carried out since 1975 around the Classic Maya center of Copan, in western Honduras, have yielded a wealth of settlement data. A total of 2,048 obsidian-hydration dates have redefined the Late Classic Coner ceramic phase, showing it to extend well into the Early Postclassic. Sites with Coner ceramics exhibit much more intraphase chronological variation than expected. The Classic “collapse” at Copan was much more protracted than thought previously. There is an abrupt royal collapse at about A.D. 800, but subroyal elite activity continues for another 200 years, and population declines gradually over a period of four centuries.

De las dos pinturas de un felino que adornan la entrada del edificio interior de Cerro Sechin, un sitio del período Inicial en la costa norte del Peru, la del lado oriental es auténtica, mientras que la del lado occidental se cree es una falsificación. Aunque un recien artículo y fotografía sugieren que el felino occidental fue repintado en 1971-1972 para mejorar la vista para el público, un estudio cuidadoso de la fotografía apoya la posición que el felino occidental es una obra moderna.