"What a woman! And what a fabulous life to unearth. Zelia Nuttall was incredibly smart, determined, a divorced single mother in a man’s world, a great scholar, and an original thinker—yet today she’s completely forgotten. Merilee Grindle has dug deep into the archives and uncovered her fascinating story."—Andrea Wulf, author of The Invention of Nature

"Zelia Nuttall comes alive in all her fascinating contradictions in Merilee Grindle’s capable hands...[This] biography challenges our modern smugness and reminds us that our roots as scholars are more complex than we often acknowledge."—Camilla Townsend, author of Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

The gripping story of a pioneering anthropologist whose exploration of Aztec cosmology, rediscovery of ancient texts, and passion for collecting helped shape our understanding of pre-Columbian Mexico.

Where do human societies come from? The drive to answer this question took on a new urgency in the nineteenth century, when a generation of archaeologists began to look beyond the bible for the origins of different cultures and civilizations. A child of the San Francisco Gold Rush whose mother was born in Mexico City, Zelia Nuttall threw herself into the study of Aztec customs and cosmology, eager to use the tools of the emerging science of anthropology to prove that modern Mexico was built over the ruins of ancient civilizations.

Proud, disciplined, as prickly as she was independent, Zelia Nuttall was the first person to accurately decode the Aztec calendar stone. An intrepid researcher, she found pre-Columbian texts lost in European archives and was skilled at making sense of their pictographic histories. Her work on the terra-cotta heads of Teotihuacán captured the attention of Frederic Putnam, who offered her a job at Harvard’s Peabody Museum.

Divorced and juggling motherhood and career, Nuttall chose to follow her own star, publishing her discoveries and collecting artifacts for US museums to make ends meet. From her beloved Casa Alvarado in Coyoacán, she became a vital bridge between Mexican and US anthropologists, connecting them against the backdrop of war and revolution.

The first biography of Zelia Nuttall, In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl captures the appeal and contradictions that riddled the life of this trailblazing woman, who contributed so much to the new field of anthropology until a newly professionalized generation overshadowed her remarkable achievements and she became, in the end, an artifact in her own museum.

"This vibrant biography follows the complex, captivating figure of Zelia Nuttall, a self-taught scholar of ancient Mesoamerica and a pioneer of modern anthropology…Grindle paints an indelible portrait of a woman both charming and challenging, whose boldness could slip easily into imperiousness, and whose zeal could lead her astray." - New Yorker

"Zelia Nuttall was the first anthropologist to accurately decipher the Aztec calendar stone. In this first published biography of the pioneering social scientist, Merilee Grindle examines the then-new field of anthropology, which employed few women. She explores how Nuttall’s dogged research contributed to our understanding of the history and culture of ancient Mexico." - Christian Science Monitor

"Even now Nuttall lacks widespread recognition, but Grindle’s passionate book, including extensive research in Mexico, will ensure that she is never forgotten." - British Museum Magazine

"Grindle unearths the story of the pioneering anthropologist Zelia Nuttall, whose study of Aztec culture and cosmology transformed our understanding of pre-Columbian Mexico. She was the first to accurately decode the Aztec stone calendar, and also rediscovered countless pre-Columbian texts previously thought to have been lost—all the while juggling single motherhood with her career." - The Millions

"This biography of Nuttall…does justice to a remarkable but forgotten scholar." - Nature

"Recounts the trailblazing story of archaeology Zelia Nuttall…This book does an exemplary job of conveying this distinctive story of a single mother who accomplished many wondrous things in a world and era that were decidedly against her." - Library Journal

"Zelia Nuttall was a pioneering anthropologist whose many contributions ranged from decoding a giant Aztec calendar to burnishing the reputation of the sixteenth-century English navigator Sir Francis Drake. In this beautifully crafted biography, Grindle situates Nuttall’s work in Mexico in the lead-up to the 1910 revolution. Her research helped Mexicans understand their pre-Columbian national heritage, in its sophisticated engineering, gardening, artistry, and cosmology, as being as glorious as that of Mediterranean societies in the classical era." - Foreign Affairs

"[A] fascinating biography of Mexican-American anthropologist Zelia Nuttall…[whose work] helped shape the field of archaeology and the scientific study of the history of humankind in the Americas…Defying her cultural constrictions, she exerted a significant impact on the values and methodologies of institutions." - ReVista

"Grindle combines a rousing tale of archaeological discovery with an incisive description of how institutional marginalization occurs, tracing how Nuttall’s legacy was ignored by subsequent generations of anthropologists. This enjoyable account restores to prominence an influential figure in her field." - Publishers Weekly

"Grindle does not allow discursions into Nuttall’s scholarly interests to slow down the strong narrative pace of her book. … Specialised knowledge of a particular profession provides captivating details as our protagonist navigates the events and personalities of world history." - History Today