The traveler en route to Mexico for the first time or the beginning student of Mesoamerican archaeology, dazzled by the varied reminders of exotic extinct cultures that dot the map, will welcome this engaging introduction to Mexico before the Spanish conquest. The author, a leading Mexican archaeologist, guides the novice reader from the arrival of man in the New World through the thousands of years during which society evolved from small groups of hunter-gatherers to the advanced civilization that the first European visitors encountered in the sixteenth century. In addition to showing us the fascinating religious art and architecture that are the most spectacular remains of the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica, Litvak King focuses on the importance of trade in the development of civilization by the Olmec -- and to its role in the decline of the Aztec empire. Throughout, he shares with the reader the intellectual excitement of modern archaeology, with examples from excavations completed as recently as the 1980s.